To travel in the great Indian public transport,
You need to either romanticise it
Or be oblivious like a cat.
The busyness of it is much similar to bulls packed up in a vehicle.
Yet people feel bad only for the animals.
Animals stacked together makes it violence.
Humans stacked together makes it culture.
I am the romanticising kind.
Thinking of all the little things that make the chaos the culture.
I have been told stories–
Of how women carry a safety pin in their vanity bags
To alleviate the middle-aged-male tantrums in a bus.
A poke for a poke.
I have taken the scent of jasmine flowers
Tucked neatly in the hair of a girl,
Brimming with Kerala hair oil.
She is short like me–
Placing the jasmine exactly near my nose.
I have looked at the steel poles in the bus,
To catch a faint glimpse of me
And see if I’m pretty enough like the other girls.
I have had ladies’ bags stuck to my face–
It is a package of experience that comes with being short.
I have heard the signature whistle of each conductor–
That would have made them great musicians.
And their sharp memory that reminds the new passengers
Where to get off – Google Maps is no match to them.
To top it all is the music system running in the background–
Where one cannot make out the song
But merely know that music exists, yet the driver never turns it off.
Amidst this cacophony, I’m just one among many.
Only the conductor holds the remote.
He is the star of the bus, not even the driver.
I move to the left or the right as he tells me.
So obedient that it would make my mother gasp.
If you want to know how small and insignificant you are,
Get on a public bus in India.
Anu Karippal is a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Virginia.
Featured image: Flickr