Rattling along at its unassailable speed and forcing every other vehicle to the side, the bus I used to take to and fro from my work was packed with all kinds of passengers — students, civil servants, businessmen, vendors, and daily-wage labourers.

Before I had started travelling by this bus, I used to watch it whiz past and couldn’t help myself comparing it to a coop, jam-packed with chickens. I never thought I would volunteer to be one of the chicks myself some day. But, reluctant though I was at the prospect, I nevertheless had to take the ride for the lack of a better option. And in spite of the mountains of problems I initially faced, I later started enjoying the ride.

I used to hear school students chatter away about TV serials, sports, teachers, weather, movies, et cetera and soak it all in with some glee. Frequent rides also made me familiar with some of the faces with whom I started exchanging smiles. During office hours, I got to hear a lot about politics from the old guards. What didn’t those chatterboxes discuss? Latest political events, petroleum price, unorganised office management, daughter’s wedding. Everything under the sun, it seemed.

However, there was a very dark side to this joy-ride. Though the morning rides were pleasant, the evening ones, hard on both the ears and the lower limbs, were surely not. With hardly enough space to plant their feet, women were constant victims of intentional pushing and shoving by a handful of hoodlums. The competition among the drivers to reach the destination faster only added to making the ride a tad more rough and bumpy. And neither was there a scarcity of people who goggled at you as if you were an alien. But there were some gentlemen, too, who were happy to offer their seats to women.

The bus milieu was a microcosm of humanity, I felt at times. There were all kinds of people: men and women, young and old, good and bad, tall and short, benevolent and prurient. That was indeed the true beauty of the ride. As if humanity was once again packed into Noah’s Ark, each headed to his final destiny, where he would dismount only to await another fateful ride later in the day.