DTC Buses

I had forgotten the joy of travelling in a bus.

I used to detest public transport (past tense). 

In the recent past I had chauffeur driven car and now i drive on my own and on rare occassions do miss the public busses

For the past one year i have had no opportunity to travel in the  the delhi DTC busses, the low-lying ones of course,  but yesterday I did!

And my god the public has increased there were of course the shoves and pushes and surprisingly more “excuse me’s”! that was a major surprise …. or maybe it was just me looking very corporate ….

And the icing on the cake was the weather, it was nice not the usual sweaty Delhi ki garmi… so i didnt mind standing in the bus for a good 20 mins while being thrown left and right depending on the rash turns that the bus took.

As i stood (u are lucky if you get a seat) i noticed two ladies who looked like they had just walked in from the heartlands of India. With their colourful sarees, bangles, bindi and that “I am from rural india and I am very comfortable with my body and I dont care if I have my feet up on the seat … cause really it is not big deal you urban maniacs … cause all you do is slog it out in the office and have no life” …. look and ” I am going to chatter in my heartland language and point fingure at you and smile and snicker while you try to figure out what is soooo absurdly amusing” look

So there I was standing and being snickered at but I didnt mind it in fact i was curious and happy! (?)…

Community travel is interesting … in a car you forget that joy of holding on to your dear life while the bus maneuvers at death speed and that crazy ticket guy who will take his own sweet filthy time to punch holes in your ticket while you stand there waiting for your majesty to give you that ticket which took you a good 8 minutes to get after a lot of shoving pushing and elbowing people.

 You forget that there are people more similar to you only from different places with different languages …

You forget that yours and the rest of the 58 people in that bus unconsciously trust the driver a little too much … who is being reckless as hell with your lives

You forget that its okay if someone is snickering at you in an unknown language

And you forget that the bus tickets are still damn cheap! (though that will change soon)