A bus with a view

I

The little boy and his father finally got a chance to get on to a bus together one evening. It was one of those days when their car was at the service station. In fact, the boy and his father were going to fetch the car from the service station that evening.
For a long time, the father had told himself: “I must take the little fellow for bus rides in the city. It will be a different experience all together…” For a long time, the city bus ride remained just that – a thought that sometimes nagged and reminded. Partly because the boy’s father travelled so much on work (which left him with less time to spend with the family), and partly because the boy’s mother was not happy with the idea (that it was not safe for her young son to travel by the local bus), the practice of using buses by the family had dwindled. She could not understand why bus travel was on her husband’s mind, when he and her son could have travelled by the auto-rickshaw. When middle class families are upwardly mobile, and are on an acquiring and consuming spree, they would like to show that ‘they have arrived’. Bus travel then, among other frugal practices of living, is one of the casualties. It is even considered to be ‘below one’s status level.’
That evening, all of this changed for a few hours.
They would have to travel by at least two buses to reach the service station located at the other end of the city. The city itself had grown in size, and travelling to the other end took a much longer time than before. It was that much more difficult as well. The boy’s father has seen a smaller, greener city with less people, less noise, less vehicles and more lakes. The city was often called ‘The Air Conditioned City’. It was also called the ‘Pensioner’s Paradise’. You could retire here, and hope to lead a peaceful life.
The boy’s father had often noted, “Not only is this city expanding horizontally, it is growing vertically too!” The flat system was largely unknown in the early 80’s. Like a plague, it dominated the city’s landscape now. There were flats of all shapes and sizes – they came at all costs, catering to many tastes and fantasies. They were fancily named, too – the names suggested a longing for all things European. From a distance, the boy’s father had recently been shown an ‘ultra-modern’ flat adjacent to the city’s famous cricket stadium. He had learnt that it had a swimming pool on every floor! He had then thought, “So, this is what we mean by modernity, eh? The more modern you are, the more you consume. The more you flaunt. They drain all the water from the ground and pump it up for these people to live their lifestyles!” Not far away, people queued for water everyday and had to wait for hours.
The flat system also stimulated his imagination. He found the practice of ‘living on top of each other’ (as he called it) amusing, and did not like it much. He was used to living and growing up in houses that were independent, small or big. Many times he had worn his X-ray glasses, and looked at the first flat that came his way. Shorn of the arrogance of these structures and their names, he witnessed a variety of human experience, the eternal drama of everyday living – men, women and children going about their daily chores in their living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, toilets; fornicating men and women, making guttural sounds; crying and playing children; bedridden old men and women; snatches, of conversations, arguments and fights; women being abused by their men; men being shouted at by their women; clothes on the clotheslines in the balcony; audacious looking dresses, both inner and outer; people meditating and praying.
All on top of each other, at right angles, in boxes of various shapes and sizes, people led their lives.
II
The little boy and his father excitedly got into the first bus that would take them part of the way, till the main city bus terminus in a place called ‘Majestic’. Not too many passengers were around, so the boy got a seat next to the window. This is what his father had wanted for him.
Just two minutes into the bus ride, the boy exclaimed, “I can see so much!” The bus was stuck in a traffic snarl and was slowly winding its way through some by-lanes of Malleshwaram, the crowded, bustling area in the Northern part of the city. A year ago, these lanes had not seen buses and much traffic. People who lived here had led quieter and less smoke filled lives then. Thanks to an explosion in vehicular population, the Pensioner’s Paradise struggled to keep up pace. Flyovers, ‘Fly-unders’, expressways, widening of roads…these had become a common sight. In an effort to provide a ‘Mass Rapid Transport System’, the city’s planners and politicians had embarked on the ambitious metro rail project. As a result, bus routes had changed, and regular commuters got to see parts of the city they had never seen before.
Trees were the first casualty, and tree lovers routinely held protests. Shop keepers too protested, when they were told that their shops would be demolished to make way for the metro. For the rest of the city dwellers, it was a saga of endless traffic jams and dust. Two ways became one ways, and one ways became two ways overnight.
“Look at that man -- he is changing his clothes!” The window seat afforded the little boy a peep into a bedroom off the narrow road.
“Why has the bus stopped?” the boy wondered. “Hey, look! They are playing a game on the laptop!” The man stretched to look out of the window and saw a car standing adjacent to the bus. Two boys in the backseat were oblivious to the din and smoke outside. Immediately, he was reminded of a bus ride he had had in Delhi some months ago on his way to Jaipur. Three boys were watching a blue movie in the backseat of an air conditioned car. He even remembered the scene in which the woman was on top. The car gradually drew away with its lustful spectacle inside. “Isn’t it strange?” The man wondered. Technology can do all kinds of things for us, yet in most cases we seem to be using it to sate our carnal instincts.” He had read somewhere that a significant amount of traffic on the internet was to access all kinds of porn material.
“So, are you enjoying the ride?” asked the father. “Yes, I can see so much! We can’t see all this when we drive in our car, right? I am sitting so high above the road.”
The bus moved ever so slowly and they passed a line of shops in a narrow road that had not seen so much traffic. The boy looked on intently, through the window. His father knew that he was absorbed in the new spectacle his bus seat offered him. Position changes perspective, right? A few minutes later, the boy dozed off.
III
They had to change buses at the central bus station in Majestic. The next bus ride was longer, as the distance covered was more. Since everyone had poured out of their offices, schools and colleges by then, there were traffic snarls everywhere. Nice word, this. In a traffic jam, everyone ends up snarling at everyone else.
In the second bus which they boarded at Majestic, some one sitting behind started talking with the little boy. ‘What’s your name? Which school do you go to?’ Then he was tickled! After a while, this interaction ceased. By then, they were passing by the city’s horse racing course. Thanks to a flyover constructed right next to the course, the boy was able to see the outline of the course, but not much was visible, as it had become dark. Throughout the ride, the boy’s father kept pointing out various landmarks in the city. The famous Town Hall, the Botanical Gardens…a discussion about these spaces followed.
A few minutes later, a woman in a black gown got into the box. Her face was covered as well. The boy asked, ‘Who is she and why is she wearing a dress like that?’ Asking a question like that was easy, but answering it was not! His father had to explain the background of that dress worn specifically by women in Muslim communities. It was called the ‘Burqa’ and the practice of wearing it to prevent men from seeing women, was called ‘Purdah’. ‘But why should she wear that, and why can’t men see her…?’ was the next question. The man wondered: ‘Is this what a bus ride can do to my son’s curiosity?’ He began to realize how much of the real world is blocked when one travels in a car.
Ultimately, everything depends upon one’s vantage point. Like the car, the bus is a bigger box which we inhabit for a limited time when we travel from one place to another. Unlike the car, the bus allows us to socialise and interact with other human beings. This changes our perspectives about others and about living, if we allow ourselves to learn. Economic mobility is fine, but it tends to isolate and segregate people from each other. Not only that – more importantly, it cuts you off from nature – we begin to live inside boxes. It makes you consume more, without regenerating nature.
The other point is this: one’s vantage point also helps to decide how much one wants to get out of life. Limitless living is possible when, through exploration, we keep shifting vantage points, each point offering us a broader yet in depth experience of life itself.
All these points were not lost on the boy’s father as they headed home after collecting their car.
April 2008
Bangalore