Pals on Wheels!

Oflate, I have been meeting and making a whole lot of new friends. Well its not on the internet nor is it through my other acquaintances, or family, or any such thing. I get to meet my new friends throughout the week. And everyday when I see them, we usually tend to greet each other with a warm smile, exchange a few words pleasantries(a rarity though!). Most of the time we try and make conversation without talking. Well thats the speciality of our friendship you see! We usually watch each others' actions or facial expressions. My 'new friends' and I come from completely different social backgrounds. Most often we don't speak the same language, we dress in very different ways, we definitely don't share common interests. But yes, there's that one thing that brings my new friends and I together. Well, we travel on the same bus, the same route, at the same timing :).

I travel everyday across the Hebbal Ring Road at 7.00 a.m. I take the 500 series bus. My journey on this route usually takes me 45 minutes to an hour to reach my destination, which is my workspot. My new friends are of all ages. School kids carrying bags bigger than themselves. Groups of college students most of whom are busy catching up on which girl dumped which boy or vice- versa. A few other geeky ones nervoulsy turning the pages of their notebooks, making maximum use of this god-given time, to learn that one last physics problem which they probably skipped last night. Young mothers trying to balance their crying baby in one arm and balancing the oversized handbag (stuffed with the baby's bottles, clothes, and toys) on the other. Old people, some dressed in their best silk and jewellery on their way to attend a precious grandchild's wedding, while a few others dressed in the most simplest of clothes carrying a file in their hands, probably heading to the bank to get their monthly pensions.Young men jostling and pushing around, most of them hanging on the footboard of the bus while the bus conductor yells at the top of his voice asking them to get inside the bus. Many office-goers like me who would have anxiously looked at their watches a hundred times just to be sure they make it on time to work.

Yes, all of us are on this journey. Though the time period is a short one, the goal is to reach our respective destinations. Once we get off this bus we completely have no idea about each others whereabouts or how the rest the of the day goes on for each. But for that one single hour we share the company of each other.
Like someone said 'Too often we are we are so preoccupied with the destination that we forget the journey'. This is so true of each one of us. We are very often so preoccupied with our lives, our family, our jobs, our well-being, our money. We rarely have time to look around us.

We have become insensitive to one another. And that's why many a time while taking such journeys people wouldn't care much if an old lady/man or a mother carrying her child were standing. 'Why must I forsake my seat for her?' this is thought that would come up in our minds. So just look around the next time you travel on a bus. You will see a variety of people. I am personally trying to do some small acts of kindness towards the people I meet everyday. I am not saying become Mother Teresa or perform some great acts of charity.It could even be as small as sharing a seat with a little child on your way to work. But it is that thankful smile he gives you in return that keeps me going good for the rest of the day.