Bus ride

45 minutes in a public bus

By Mazhar Khan Jadoon

I had to run for a few yards, finally to be pulled up by fellow passengers on board a public bus. Breathing heavily, I threw myself into an aisle seat, next to a 45-year-old passenger who religiously kept coughing and spitting out of the widow without even realising what he was doing to other passengers. Welcome aboard a public transport bus and buckle up for a noisy ride! Up above the window was written in bold words; “Behave and show courtesy to other passengers”. That written advice kept me from asking a standing passenger not to place his old dusty leather bag on top of my head. My courtesy and patience could not match the weight of the bag and I had to request him to get off the bag. He was kind enough to throw that bag into my lap, retorting that this is the best he could do.

The next moment he was quarrelling with the bus conductor for the seat he was promised. The conductor was not in a good mood at all and was quick to retaliate and soon after it was free-for-all. The gentleman sitting beside me again spitted freely out of the window after a long spell of cough and remarked, "This belligerent bus conductor is upset because he had a fight with his wife and is on duty without having a breakfast." Passengers around who heard him guffawed and praised him for his guess ‑ probably most of them had experienced a day without a breakfast. The bus was full to capacity ‑ and for a bus plying on a local route it means five to six passengers hanging at the door and footstep. The driver of the bus was courteous enough to wait for the passengers who had just planned to leave their homes for the bus stop. Shouting ladies and gentlemen, who were getting late for their offices and destinations, could not convince the driver to move on. Everybody on board, except the driver, was in a hurry.

A man with a small bag hanging from his shoulder was desperately trying to make his way in. A terrorist, a suicide bomber? No he turned out to be a mobile gastroenterologist trying to sell out his homemade remedies that cures all the diseases a man can think of. Give him credit for attracting a diverse crowd for a few minutes with the help of his well-prepared script listing out a group of symptoms that miraculously matched that most of the passengers carried. And that was the skill of the mobile doctor to sell health to a crowd having little access to healthcare.

Another vendor elbowed the standing passengers to make room for his on-board shop. The man was selling literature in the form of booklets of poetry, Naats and stories teaching morality. Even if the price of a set of books was so tempting that I could have bought all of them, but something kept me from buying – perhaps I am not used to buy anything, except ticket, on board a bus. Still, the vendor found many readers for his books, owing to his skill of reading out interesting teasers out of the books.

Another quiet interesting feature of the ride – that kept me attentive throughout the journey – was public debate going on in the bus. Capitalising on the absence of an irritating moderator, everyone aboard was free to discuss anything from the Blackwater plot to steal Pakistani nukes to the political wrangling in the wake of NRO. It was a pleasant surprise for me to know that the common man – a term sadly coined for the have-nots of society by those who matter – knows everything happening around, and they won’t let the rulers to take them for a ride anymore. As topics for the public debate grew, so did the crowd in the bus, and it was time for me to get ready for another feast – that was to get off the bus.

The conductor announced my destination and I started pushing the passengers around, just as everybody was doing. It was one of the rare moments when I really hated myself for frantically pushing passengers and stepping on their toes in a bid to reach the bus door. The fact that it is hard to be courteous and civilized on board a public bus saddened me ‑ the reasons being countless. Once off the bus, I examined myself and thanked God for I was in one piece still wearing my woolen cap, shoes and jacket and still carrying my handbag. All I left behind was a noisy bus my yearning for a society where we don’t need to remind people of “BEHAVE”.