Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Journey...

A break from my usual posts... this one is something that came up from the world so external to my daily life...

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Like any normal day, it was yet another fine sunny morning, and I was all dressed up and ready to go to work. Times have changed form school, to college to work now, but fortunately or unfortunately I end up taking the same route to all these places… for years together I have been traveling by the same bus, actually gifted that I at least have this bus to commute.

Too many passengers, too many stops in between, and between all these I have had the best of times. I have met the best of people, got to know few of them better, and few others still better. Few have traveled with me for years, and few got down before I realized they were there. What more can I expect from a mere bus travel. The very thought of going to the bus stop every morning makes me think all these, and before I could start getting more anxious the bus is there.

I board the bus and wish all the usual commuters I know, a simple smile to say we know we are traveling together and take my usual window seat just behind the driver, I obviously hadn’t reserved it for me (if only I could), it was just there waiting for me. And there he was, a stranger sitting next to me where this other person was sitting till “yesterday”. Now I in fact think how far yesterday was, that I either had no clue that this other co-passenger am talking about would not be commuting along with me or that I knew and just couldn’t accept. Not a pal, not a kin – a co-passenger whom I knew for long (if long as a definition), he was just not there. I felt strange experiencing what regularity could do to change.

Was ashamed to say I missed him during whole of the travel that day, for we share no relationship and he was no-one to me. But I felt his absence strongly. There finally was an alternate occurrence in my otherwise monotonous daily routine. I dint have someone to talk to. I dint have that someone who wanted nothing but a conversion – random, meaningless conversation. That was part of what I did everyday and I wondered what I would do henceforth to fill that space. Oh, the other fellow commuters I said “hi” to when I got in are still around, they might have noticed that I am surprised. They either dint know me too well to say “Act normal, he was just a co-passenger”, or they knew me too well and thought I would realize from what I had learnt all through my journey days. Either ways I was left to myself.

Am actually fine with being left to myself, I will have all the time to return all calls, to finish all the reading I wanted to and all the dreaming I planned to, and above all to discover other niceties a bus journey offers. Still not sure if this new stranger is going to take the same bus again, I knew not whether to say a “hi!” or just ignore. But god gave me a mouth to talk and I did. I stopped only when the bus did, when this stranger had to say the dreaded “was nice talking to you, bye! “.

Am used to this now, and was waiting for next co-passenger to board the bus, so that I can peacefully travel the last few miles of my journey, I wait knowing that there are going to be more stops, more passengers but what will stay is the bus, my destination, me and my journey I chose to take.