Buses and the Private Eye - Part II

Belgaum contd...

Once inside the bus I generally tried to make my way to the front, for there was always space for children in the driver's area - on the box which covered the engine, on the rods which were used to separate the driver's area from the rest of the bus, or on the widow sil equivalent for the windshield on the left where you could sit if you did not obstruct the driver's view of the left rear-view mirror. I even remember, on a particularly crowdy day, standing just behind the driver's chair. That was something! These front seats were real fun. Given the undulating roads, it was like taking the front seats on a mild roller-coaster. Plus there was the added pleasure of watching lowly pedestrians, cyclists, autos and chicken shuffle hurriedly as the ST haughtily stormed its way through.

But let me not make a romance out of traveling in crowded buses. Uncrowded buses are uncrowded buses! Nothing can beat short trips on an uncrowded bus. Often on rainy days when the dombaris got lazy and the farmers had no work in town, we got to go to school in an uncrowded bus. Or when on some holiday I made a trip to the town library in the afternoon.

The sun pouring in through the windows at just the right angle, the wind like a million natural fans in your face, spacious seats which no one wanted to share with you, the scenery through the windows, the 'ghada ghada ghada' sounds as all the nuts and bolts in the seats shook with no passenger weight to hold them down, the other bus sounds - window panes rattling in their frames, the squeaks of the breaks, the groans of the gearbox, the sounding of the horn - it is a mini orchestra, no less. Generally in an uncrowded bus, no one speaks. Perhaps everybody is as comfortable and happy as I am. In an uncrowed bus one doesnt care if the journey ends or not.

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By the way the title of this series of posts should have actually been 'The Public Buses and I' but I have taken some ThompsonAndThompson-esque liberties with it to make this series sound more interesting than it is. What the heck, its my blog.