Travelling cattle class

Travelling ‘cattle class’, if I may dare use the demeaning epithet, is definitely illuminating in more ways than one. It throws open a brilliant case study of what constitutes the great Indian reality show.  It has been some years since college when I last got into a bus (doing the Delhi-Dehra Dun-Delhi circuit) on a rather longish journey. Yesterday I travelled from Gaya to Ranchi in a ‘coach’, classified such only because it had foam seats which could get into a semi-reclining position with the touch of a button. Otherwise it had the smattering of the erstwhile DTC bus that seemed to be bursting with its passenger load.

There was a diverse mix on board – a student busy on his cellphone talking about the state transport getting reduced to a local bus, population sensex workers talking of BPL cards, a father asking his son what he did with the money that his ‘mamu’ gave him, a little boy dozing off standing, the propreitoral jhola owner who wouldn’t let the sleepy kid sit on his bag (his veggies would get crushed), the lawyer who kept convincing his client on phone that he won’t let anything happen to the latter, a middle aged man busy playing painfully archaic Hindi songs on his cell with few voices saying, “collecsionva achcha hai”, a couple with three children of different sizes – each individual represented a different world altogether.

 The six-hour journey had the classic shades of people jostling for space, adjustment of three in a seat for two, conversation cursing the terrible state of transport, the ticket collector luring in people with the promise of a seat after a certain distance, the driver competing with the other bus close at its heels, the conductor tapping on the rickety tin door to signal start and stop of the moving bus to the driver – all becoming a fight to the finish because of the scarcity of buses at the end of the Dussehra holiday.

I had a ringside view to this fantastic spectacle sitting on the first seat with my two children. The ‘conductor-sahib’ was an apparition from a Hindi  movie of the ‘70’s, buck toothed, with soda glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, constantly pulling up his pants to the chest between counting tickets and convincing people that there really was space inside the bus. He promised seats after Hazaribagh (a good 3 hours away) and when passengers were doubtful about boarding, he said the bus was ‘special’, one that would not stop anywhere between Gaya and Hazaribagh.

 No sooner did we start  than the bus driver braked a few hundred metres away to pick up a stream of people and the conductor kept on his motivating act, assuring the ‘climbers’ of seats after Hazaribagh on the ‘special’ bus. I was appalled to hear two boys striking a bargain with the conductor, paying him Rs 60 per ticket instead of Rs 80. “Chaliye aaap saath hi dijiye,” the conductor reconciled, with no trace of embarrassment, as he pocketed the money without issuing a ticket.

We must have made at least five to six such stops in the first hour despite the aisle and the driver’s cabin being full. The no-ticket transactions and full-blown haggling continued at regular intervals. Twenty rupees were traded in lieu of thirty, fifteen for twenty and in some instances passengers just handed over a bill and despite the conductor asking for more, maintained a muted silence! The bus kept getting crammed and I could only marvel at the conductor’s faith in how much his bus could take and the people’s tenacity in climbing on board despite the numbers.

Every time a passenger got on, he would crane his neck at various angles above the heads that obstructed the view to the rear, make some comment on the terrible rush and finally found a footing to add another number in this already stuffed-to-capacity  space. As the sounds of ‘khisko-sarko, aage badhiye, thoda jagah dijiye na,jagah banaiye, arrey bhai bahut jagah hai, samaan kinarey kijiye, kahan badheyn, kidhar jagha hai,’ came from within and without, by some sheer force of push n pull, the elbows over my head kept moving a micro-inch away and people on the door step got elevated to the top. People remonstrated with each other on not allowing foot space, clumsy management of luggage in the aisle, the buffoon conductor who kept taking on passengers and so on.

In a crowd where people were literally breathing down each others’ necks there were some interesting observations that I made. For one, in a state and amidst a class of people considered crass and unruly, I didn’t hear an expletive even once, not even the mildest one. Two, there weren’t any smoking Joes. Three, politeness reigned supreme in this shift and shuffle of the population that seemed to implode any moment.

When my son wanted to get off for a pee break, a couple of hands got him off the bus and back again. When someone shouted from the rear about why the bus had stopped the conductor said, “bachchey ko bathroom laga hai”; that seemed to silence the objection and before long the front section of the population jumped off commenting, “ek doosre ko dekh kar lag jaata hai”. And a couple of voices concurred as if it were a comment as banal as, “I’ve had a rather long day”!!

At Hazaribagh a whole bunch of people disembarked, but still there was no seat for those who the conductor had promised. Several voices came out in support of the people who had been promised seats. The hapless conductor simply threw up his hands and once again asked people, “thoda adjust kijiye na”.

Despite the discomfort and the chaotic cacophony that characterized my travel, there was a distinct humour and worldview that was part of the experience. How people travel regularly under these trying conditions with an easy calm, how the fortunate ones with a seat are willing to share the space that they own presently, how what seems virtually impossible to me is practically possible in a country that knows deprivation and hardship only too well, all of these came as big learning to me.

We had to get on to the bus because our train tickets could not get confirmed. I was none too pleased about travelling in the bus but sitting on the first seat, looking at the people who spent the entire journey standing, I realized that the person with no slippers is better off than the one who doesn’t have a leg!!

The journey to Gaya was to see the Mahabodhi temple and the Mahabodhi tree under which Gautam Buddha got enlightenment. My enlightenment fell into a different category of sorts. I’ll remember it more for this bus journey than for the guided tour that we undertook at Bodh Gaya.