The Commute

Every morning my 4 rupees are carefully counted and clutched in a sweaty hand. I wait one street down from the municipal water pump near my house - with the equivalent of about 10 cents, I can bump and screech to work on the local bus. For a while I was faithful to the 212 out of a sense of habit and security. But after the ticket man seemed, for all intents and purposes, to deliberately ignore my culturally appropriate bus-beckoning wave (a sort of “bye-bye” hand motion directed at the ground) a couple of times - leaving me a forlorn speck in the rearview mirror - I became a little bitter and began splitting my bus business between them, the 3C/2 and the Prince Anwar Shaw. I’m sure the 212 ticket man has not picked up on my deliberate consumer rebellion, but I’m all for small empowerments.

If several people want to either get on or get off, the bus may actually come to a complete standstill. Otherwise, the lone customer makes a carefully gauged hop as the bus slows down for their convenience. The ticket men, leaning out at each of the two entrances fulfill such duties as handing out bulky bags to the recently exited before the bus speeds off or dragging young children in by the arm as their parent hops up behind them - all the while sing-songing a litany of bus destinations for the route. Human debris in the clear, they then smack smack the side of the bus, signaling the driver to resume his battle with the city traffic.

The golden rules of Calcutta driving:
If there is a small pocket of space in front of you, thou shall occupy it at all costs.
If you see anything at all move in your field of vision, thou shall honk thy horn at it vigorously.
If drivers or pedestrians do not clearly wave their intentions to enter close to your vehicle, thou shall pretend they don’t exist and continue driving at a normal, breakneck speed.

Inside the bigger ones, long bench seats line the four sides of the bus. Pleasantly, the bus is sex segregated with curly-cued, yellow “ladies” signs painted on the front and right sides. I find it much more pleasant to be squished close to a sweaty, fat, be-saried grandmother then the opposite option. Although that detached, metro-in-rush-hour silent anonymity is maintained on the bus, people will obligingly grab children who are thrown up the bus stairs, children who are about to be thrown sideways by a jolt, and children who are about to be overpowered by the sway of their large backpacks and bags – children really are at a gravitational disadvantage here, the forward progression of the bus being marked by the sharp to and fro jerks of a minor squall.

I cling on and try to mentally will the queasiness of my morning malaria pill to hold off. Through the honking cars, taxis and rickshaws, we bump forwards through morning congestion. The sidewalks burble with people at the tea stands and opening up kiosks. Up to Deshpriya Park, left onto Rash Behari and down to my landmark (the “Cake and Bake” shop), juggling my bulky computer bag and bottled water, I literally hop off to work.