There was a slight breeze of cold wind hitting on the face. As I reached the main road, I could see the old concrete bus stop on the other side of the road some 20 feet away. It was held by three pillars, and had space just enough for about 10 persons to stand – but anyway, that was the more than enough as it was not a major bus stop. It was yellow in color and looked about 10-20 years old. It had a concrete base about half a foot high, and the pillars were surrounded by large square seating blocks.
As I was crossing the road I noticed a fair girl of about 20-25 jogging, in black t-shirt and pyjamas. That was unusual. I had never seen any girl jogging here. And I can say that because I have been living here past 20 years and going to that bus stop past 3 years. Well anyways, times are changing. People are changing. I continued to walk and reached the bus stop.
This bus stop was not that clean a place, but fine enough to sit and wait for 10 mins. There were all kinds of posters pasted on the wall behind the bus stop. The posters ranged from movies, politics, news, computer course ads etc and they were all one on top of the other fighting for space. There were few more people in the stop. Mostly the locals – in lungies.
I looked at my watch and it told me it was 7.15 – the official time for our bus to come, but as you would expect, there’s always a difference between the official time and the actual time. But no qualms though. I would rather wait 15 mins for the bus than miss it by even 1 min. The road was already buzzing with sounds of all types of vehicles rushing across in both directions. The road was wide enough to hold 3 buses in parallel, but generally this road will be overcrowded during the day time between 9 am to 9pm.
The climate was still bit cooler than it usually is, but the sun had come out and was casting long shadows on the road of the buildings behind the stop. I could see about 1.5 in the direction of the bus which was not to be seen yet. But I saw a boy coming from that side. He seemed to be 20-22 years of age and was wearing a plain cream colored shirt with dark greenish pants (which seemed to be his uniform). He had an old fashioned cloth bag hanging across his shoulders, and it didn’t seem to be heavy. He was wheatish in color and a bit heavily built. He reached the stop and stood in front of my view in the direction of the bus.
A local MTC bus came along and stopped. A few thai’s (local household workers) got down from the bus. They were all dressed in old faded multicolored sarees and were talking all together at the same time. I doubted anybody even heard what the others were saying. Not sure if they were quarrelling or discussing, but they were talking in Urdu language and so I was able to grasp a few words such as “Kya ma”, “Aisa kaisa karleko”, “kaiku ba”… They kept walking-talking and vanished away in a nearby street. I noticed a few black burkha clad girls in the bus apart from the common locals. Most likely students of SIET college. The bus went off and the boy was still in the stop.
The road was abuzz with other vehicles. The sound had increased now and it was really irritating, but we have kind of got used to it. Every now and then a share auto would slowdown/stop nearby expecting people to use their services instead of waiting for the buses, but nobody seemed to be interested.
There was a street cutting across right next to the bus stop and as I was leaning forward and backward to get a better view of whether our bus was coming, I noticed a girl of about 5.3 in finely striped blue color “bohra-burkha” with pink color flowers embroidered around the borders and a medium sized (enough to carry a notebook) pink handbag hanging on her shoulders coming to the bus stop. She was milky white in color and oval faced. She was taking very small steps and as she walked, she was constantly looking at the ground except raising her eyes every now and then for few glances around. She too stopped at the bus stand a few steps away from me. Suddenly there seemed as if I was in a garden full of roses. She seemed to have put on a very strong perfume of rose fragrance, and I, having allergy with strong perfumes got irritated. I quickly took out my kerchief and kept ready in my hand, in case sneezing starts.
I looked at my watch, and it showed that just 5 mins had passed yet since I came to this stop. Another local MTC bus came along and stopped, and now our “Food uncle” (as I call him) got down among few other people. He was a short black man in lungi, half folded-over. He unloaded 1, 2, 3, 4…, 5…, 6 and 7! Heavy utensils from the bus. They seemed to contain food especially sambar and idlis as the aromas indicated. It suddenly made me hungry though I had bit of food from home. Anyways, that’s usual. He is a regular. As soon as the bus went off, a rickshaw pulled up to him and they both began to load the utensils – a large long bucket kind-of vessel, a large pot, few round utensils, a few nylon bags etc into the rickshaw. The rickshaw got almost full and there didn’t seem to be any space for the food uncle to sit, but somehow he clambered in precariously and placed his legs one on each side of the rickshaw such that none of the items fall down and off they went.
As I turned back in the direction of the bus, I saw that there was a woman now with the boy in uniform. She was dressed in red-orangish saree, roughly worn and was trying to explain something to the boy. More like asking sorry and that it won’t happen again. But the boy seemed to be getting irritated and was not giving any heed. Looking more carefully and trying to hear what she was saying, It seemed that she had brought his tiffin box and he was not ready to take it. It was becoming a scene here in bus stop and everybody was watching it.
At a distance, I could see a yellow colored bus coming. It had its college name written in bold white fonts on all sides. It stopped in here and the boy got in – without taking the tiffin box. And the mother kept looking in sadness. I could see lot of sleeping faces inside the bus through the windows. This is expected, as the college is quite far away. Moments later, his mother walked away slowly.
Now there was a lady police in the stop. She was about 5.7, wheatish in color and was looking very sleepy with heavy eyelids. She also looked a bit tired as her face showed. This is not unusual, since there is a women’s police station nearby and perhaps she is returning back after night duty.
There is another bohra burkha clad girl coming from the other side. She is not that fair and is about the same height as the other girl waiting at the stop. Her face is full of pimples. Her burkha is pretty much same as her friends (as they turn out to be). They gave a smile to each other and had a very loose handshake –rather just touched finger tips and then touched their hand over their eyes and lips. They started talking very lowly in gujarati.
On the other side of the road I noticed an auto rickshaw overflowing with school kids and their bags, tiffin boxes and water bottles hanging all around. I wondered how they managed to adjust like that and more-so on how the parents sent small kids like this. Just as the rickshaw crossed, a mother with two small kids in school uniform was visible. They were carrying heavy bags – looked heavier than the kids themselves. It was a pity watching them carrying that load- and not just carrying but studying that as well. But as the saying goes “Survival of the fittest”, they will have to undergo all this to become competitive in today’s world.
Another MTC bus comes along and stops, and both these bohra girls and the lady police get in. The bus is largely filled with black burkha clad girls. Some with only their eyes visible, and some having their face visible. The bus goes away and the stop is empty now – except me.
I got an unpleasant feeling that the bus might have come early and I would have missed it, so I quickly rang up one of my friends in the bus and she told me that “the bus is almost reaching my
stop”. And yes it was. I could see it at a distance.
Well, that ends my “At the bus stop” experience for the day.
Coming up next – In the office bus….
