”TOWN BUS”TERS

Before I wrote it all in the Laptop:

Believe it or not, I’m writing this post under the well seated bus stop at Vadavalli, the place where all the ‘1c’s in the town queue up. I don’t mind being stared at by some nearby school girls who, I guess, aren’t used to seeing a girl in her uniform, scribbling away in her notepad, staring blankly ( I mean, thinking hard).

It’s been a hard week. I post an average of 3 posts each month. But July’s been real tough - tests, exams and I wrote the last exam (maths) this morning. And I’m sitting here, writing this while fretting over my lost marks in that exam. I always miss my marks in the objective type questions but never mind, Que sera, sera….

I had to stop by a friend’s house with my gang (at mid day, after school). It was the last day of our first mid-term tests and we really had to make up for the lost fun (sigh!) somewhere. What better way to travel, than in a town bus? There’s no dearth of amusement, once you get to know where your feet are, in a crowded bus.

I love traveling in a bus, especially in a crowded one. We’ve got the Government free bus pass scheme which allows us, school students, to travel free in TN.

Very well, It’s actor Surya’s birthday today and all the radio stations were airing songs from his movies. If you board a Private (owned) bus, you can listen to the radio but if you board a State run one, there’s none and so you can eavesdrop on all the wonderful gossip womenfolk speak.

I was on a Private bus. I didn’t particularly hear a conversation as I myself was engaged in one, with a fellow friend. Let me see – what was I talkin’ about? About the newly opened “Ganapathy silks” showroom at Crosscut road pulling in all the crowds that usually go to the nearby “Mahaveers”. Important stuff, isn’t it??

I overheard a conductor speaking over his phone (Aren’t conductors and drivers barred from using them at work?!). He was saying, “You are in that place, is it?.... But the bus doesn’t make a stop there…. Oh, then ok. I’ll make it stop for you.”

Call it social service at the bus’ and passengers’ expense.

There was one more conductor – the “unofficial” one wearing jeans and a shirt that clearly wasn’t a uniform and having a green pocket comb stuck in his back pocket. He shared the “official” one’s workload; the latter will collect money for the tickets while the former will call out the names of various bus stops and add suggestions like “R.S PURAM post office, RS PURAM post office! Hey you, old lady, get down quick!”

There was a foreign couple seated in one of the front rows. White skin tends to attract attention from anyone, even the so called aristocrats and blue blooded patriarchs of our nation. This white guy was standing up at every stop, to ask, whether it was where he had to get down and this “unofficial” responded it with sign language. They got down at the right stop (heave).

 Well then, we reached our destination. We all had a nice time, nice dosas and some nice coffee at the friend’s place and boarded a bus back home.

And back to where I am, writing this, sitting in the bus stop. You may think I’m waiting for the bus back home right? No, I’m actually waiting for my dad to pick me up. I usually walk to my house that’s half a kilometer away from the bus stop, provided the weather’s good. But now I’m damn tired and the sun’s blazing at 4 in the evening. Watching the crowds here is amusing alright but writing something is more useful, right?

And now dad* where are you?? 

* He arrived 5 minutes later…