If you ever had the misfortune of traveling in a blue line in Delhi, India, then I sympathize with you fully. Yes, I do.
No, not because each day you get up, get ready to go to your office, school or wherever, (what do I care); hoping that the bus will come early so that you can start on with your sacrilegious monotony of a journey. Then you find out that the bus will never be on time till a whole crowd’s gathered about you, each of whom will be a shark to board bus before you. Then when it comes, it’s already quite stuffed, denying you the luxury of sitting on the nice window seat from where you lecherously look down at passing (wo)men.
Coming back to the ‘sharks’, you would have been better off listening to your PT instructor at school and shed your kilos, cause man, you cant squeeze in through the gathering at the entrance. And when you do you may just find yourself dangling from the foothold outside the bus, clutching on for dear life; while smog blows through your hair. Remember ‘Blowing in the wind’ by Dylan.
Neither would I ever envy you if you happen to get inside the bus.
Because now you would have to jostle into the deep, to find a safe spot where you will be saved from the tidal rush of more people clambering in. But wait!! You forgot to buy the ticket, and the conductor is stationed way behind. While you are contemplating whether to buy the ticket or not, your moral conscience which was asleep all this while (even when you saw your neighbour pass unwanted advances to your society sweeper’s young daughter); is suddenly awakened and you decide to buy the ticket and help the country’s economy. George Bush Jr. would be so proud. So now you traverse the whole length back, stomping on others’ foot or brushing ‘accidentally’ against (wo)men, finally reaching him. If the conductor happens to be a hotshot stud, then its always young girls first; and if he’s aged in years it’s always auntyjis first. The body may grow old, but the heart is still young.
Now that you have your ticket its back to your safe spot. You have a protective hand over your wallet. It contains your money, but importantly your wife’s picture; even more importantly “Suzzie-call me at xxx”s number. And now forward march to your spot. The people lift their arms in salute to you at 45 degrees, a perfect Nazi salute. YOU actually enjoy it, till you realize they are holding the overhead bars and that you will have to pass under their raised armpits. But you have no choice. As you hustle through the sea of stinking humanity, you notice that a few (wo)men have armpit hair. You notice this because they wear cut sleeves. Disgusted you want to puke but there isn’t any space. So you hold it in your throat till you get down.
I further will not sympathize with even when you see your destination nearing and you are trying to get down. Office will start in 15 minutes, you’ll reach your stop in 5, but to wade to the exit would take you 5, while the journey from your stop to your workplace (which is nothing more than a 4x4 cubicle in a concrete building if you are in the private sector; or it will be a seat in the tea stall if you are a government servant), will take another 5 minutes. So you hurry and push forward. Push hard, push hard!!
But you aren’t the only one. Others are also pushing you. Einstein said every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You understand the principle now, forty years after you flunked your physics papers. So it’s become a ‘I push you, you push me, we all get down’ game. And again there is a brushing of bodies, only this time some man does it, rubbing his fat buttocks against you.
Thus now that you have got down you may take the liberty of crying ‘hallelujah’; and suddenly your mundane existential sorry excuse of a life seems worth living, dying for.
Cheers. Life could not be worse, could it
Yes it could!! What if you had to puke, shit and pee on the bus and you couldn’t control yourself. Worse if you were the only who could control it, but not the rest of your comrades on the bus. Think about it.
Now I must declare here that I sympathize with you only because I can. That is, I have the freedom to; our constitution grants us that freedom. So STOP fucking up our great democracy, all you crazed people.
The end…
P.S. I didn’t include the people with seats on the buses because they are rarely seen ever again. And those who have lived to tell the tale, well lets just say thwy were not the same.
No, not because each day you get up, get ready to go to your office, school or wherever, (what do I care); hoping that the bus will come early so that you can start on with your sacrilegious monotony of a journey. Then you find out that the bus will never be on time till a whole crowd’s gathered about you, each of whom will be a shark to board bus before you. Then when it comes, it’s already quite stuffed, denying you the luxury of sitting on the nice window seat from where you lecherously look down at passing (wo)men.
Coming back to the ‘sharks’, you would have been better off listening to your PT instructor at school and shed your kilos, cause man, you cant squeeze in through the gathering at the entrance. And when you do you may just find yourself dangling from the foothold outside the bus, clutching on for dear life; while smog blows through your hair. Remember ‘Blowing in the wind’ by Dylan.
Neither would I ever envy you if you happen to get inside the bus.
Because now you would have to jostle into the deep, to find a safe spot where you will be saved from the tidal rush of more people clambering in. But wait!! You forgot to buy the ticket, and the conductor is stationed way behind. While you are contemplating whether to buy the ticket or not, your moral conscience which was asleep all this while (even when you saw your neighbour pass unwanted advances to your society sweeper’s young daughter); is suddenly awakened and you decide to buy the ticket and help the country’s economy. George Bush Jr. would be so proud. So now you traverse the whole length back, stomping on others’ foot or brushing ‘accidentally’ against (wo)men, finally reaching him. If the conductor happens to be a hotshot stud, then its always young girls first; and if he’s aged in years it’s always auntyjis first. The body may grow old, but the heart is still young.
Now that you have your ticket its back to your safe spot. You have a protective hand over your wallet. It contains your money, but importantly your wife’s picture; even more importantly “Suzzie-call me at xxx”s number. And now forward march to your spot. The people lift their arms in salute to you at 45 degrees, a perfect Nazi salute. YOU actually enjoy it, till you realize they are holding the overhead bars and that you will have to pass under their raised armpits. But you have no choice. As you hustle through the sea of stinking humanity, you notice that a few (wo)men have armpit hair. You notice this because they wear cut sleeves. Disgusted you want to puke but there isn’t any space. So you hold it in your throat till you get down.
I further will not sympathize with even when you see your destination nearing and you are trying to get down. Office will start in 15 minutes, you’ll reach your stop in 5, but to wade to the exit would take you 5, while the journey from your stop to your workplace (which is nothing more than a 4x4 cubicle in a concrete building if you are in the private sector; or it will be a seat in the tea stall if you are a government servant), will take another 5 minutes. So you hurry and push forward. Push hard, push hard!!
But you aren’t the only one. Others are also pushing you. Einstein said every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You understand the principle now, forty years after you flunked your physics papers. So it’s become a ‘I push you, you push me, we all get down’ game. And again there is a brushing of bodies, only this time some man does it, rubbing his fat buttocks against you.
Thus now that you have got down you may take the liberty of crying ‘hallelujah’; and suddenly your mundane existential sorry excuse of a life seems worth living, dying for.
Cheers. Life could not be worse, could it
Yes it could!! What if you had to puke, shit and pee on the bus and you couldn’t control yourself. Worse if you were the only who could control it, but not the rest of your comrades on the bus. Think about it.
Now I must declare here that I sympathize with you only because I can. That is, I have the freedom to; our constitution grants us that freedom. So STOP fucking up our great democracy, all you crazed people.
The end…
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