This is an account of a bus commuter being observant of spaces and interaction with women while observing the city as the bus accelerates around the word ‘daily’ every day.
On the first day in bus, the driver chided. “Pragati Maidan”, I responded with a voice that doesn’t care much about being misunderstood. “Ye poora Pragati Maidan hai. Metro station jana hai? Court jana hai? Joo jana hai? Kahan jana hai? [This whole area is Pragati Maidan. Do you want to go to Metro? Court? Zoo? Where do you want to go?]"
I was not prepared for so many options. Pragati Maidan had always looked so vast that it never felt like a place that would require me to be precise.
Since that day, traveling by bus has come very close to being specific.
I traveled in bus to take respite from the word daily. Metro was making me annoyed and impatient: I reached my destination late; I wasn’t getting up early to fix the situation; I never got a seat; There was nothing to look forward to except reflections and dim lights.
In the bus, I would get a seat. In the bus, there were places to visit (not just deboard). There were options of AC, non-AC, Cluster. In the bus, there were people to listen to and conversations to watch. In the bus, there was description — be it the twisted shape of the white foot-over-bridge near Supreme Court or the looming danger of accident. Seeing speeding vehicles moving parallel, gave an impression that collision was just a few-seconds-on-race-pedal away!
Also, it was still Winter (in March!!!!)
In Delhi, seats on the front-left are usually reserved for women. That day, since all were occupied, I stood quietly. A woman behind me sat very alert in her seat as if she could be asked to get up any time. She looked at me, smiled, and directed her small index finger onto the head of a young girl sitting in front of her. She told me that I could easily adjust and should share the seat with her. But metro had given me enough lessons how not to ask for personal space by saying ‘shift ho jao’ [shift a little]. To my surprise, one of them shifted outwards and gave up space to sit in the middle, saying that she had to get off in a few minutes. So, we three, sat!
In another instance, I did not want to take window seat because I was to disembark after a few stops. I gestured my female fellow about this finality, so as to let me sit towards the aisle. She responded in her deep imparting-wisdom-like voice, “Koi baat nahi beti. Andar aaja. Utar jana jab time aaega [It’s alright child. Sit inside. Get off when the time comes.]”
How much ever this comment seemed like a person advising me about the transcendence between life and death, I took the window seat (after giving a huge smile because of the endearing way she said beti). Later on, she explained herself. “People will start crowding near us in a minute or two, that’s why I asked you to sit inside.” I agreed with her although the bus hardly gathered any bunch of people later.
It got overcrowded a week before that incident though. As I made my way with all the force I could in that crushing pile of people, I remembered what my friend had once told me. “While traveling in metro if you want help from people, then point at the person from whom you want help. If you shout for help from everyone, no one would come forward.” So, to get down on my stop, I asked everyone. Because everyone was in my way!
I became many things that day. I had to be a dragon and a squirrel, all together and all, at the same time. But I hadn’t read enough of Alice in Wonderland to call upon her spirit and neither could I decide what precise incantation could be used here. Hogwarts failed there!
It was as if gates of bus wanted me to be everyone… There was no space to even lift my face forward. Finally, in a very reporting news like speech I started saying whatever was happening - “There is no space. Give me space. Make way. How do I go? My stop is coming. Give way” and continued saying this 13 times because 23 people were standing in front of me.
I was able to get down but only after noticing how a woman in a faded orange saree was fainting as the bus slid by and I remembered that she did not ask for a seat till the time I got up. That she kept leaning on the bars and poles and in between two women’s seats and on women who were seated. All this while looking drained out. She did not ask for seat probably because she did not have energy to speak.
Another day, two women seated at the back, near the conductor, occupying window seats, discussed the information they were receiving via WhatsApp forwards. The same day another pair of broad-shouldered women wearing orange and magenta cotton saree, sat on the unreserved seats towards the front. Their oily hair was tucked tightly in bun. While wiping that hair oil from their eyebrows, they discussed how death of another female worker in their neighborhood took them by surprise. That work life of maids was not easy - was the conclusion by the time the bus reached ITO. That they had been collecting water in big blue drums for the last two weeks was the conclusion by the time I got off bus.
On a different day, a woman in a yellow suit with red embroidered flowers on the hem of her kurta, looked resolutely at everyone, as she called out some men for starting a fight the moment they got on. She had got on through the back gate. Her clear and confident voice made us all look back. We felt like listening to her. She just shut them all up and told them to take their mess outside and not disturb all of us since she wanted to buy ticket and could not reach Conductor in all that mess.
Since then, I have discovered that Jama Masjid always came to my left when I travel in the morning. This — after I missed seeing that magnificent staircase in first 11 trips. Also, the staircase appears to get smaller and smaller and then finally disappear. I also discovered that in Daryaganj, the bus halted where there was no bus stop. How many more trips would it take to notice the street lamp on which I would finally see the board hanging, casually stating ‘Bus stop’, I don’t know!
Maybe, my faculties do not reside in precision. The city in its interaction with me does not really demand an answer to Where Is That You Want to Go? I wanted to go Pragati Maidan and I reached that place. The bus does not renounce me when I miss seeing a magnificent structure. But neither does the bus receive me with open arms for sharing my seat with three people or passing a shimmering coin of 10 Rs towards the back and a ticket slip to the lady in front. The bus just passes by and becomes something else or someone else. Everything about what I could see from the windows counted in the word daily. How was I taking respite from it then?
‘Since that day, traveling by bus has come very close to being specific.’ Yes, it has come close, but not quite so.
In all this, however I came to realise one thing. That when the Uber driver would say ‘I am standing under a tree’ or that ‘I can see a road in front of me’, I would remember to smile wholeheartedly.