I am in the bus. On my way to office. Like so many others. Crammed in that bus, like mango pieces in a pickle jar. Its Rush Hour. There is a reason they call it that. For we are all in a Rush - trying to reach our offices on time.
The bus stops at Andheri station bus stop. The stop is right outside the Andheri Station Bus Depot (West). The conductor gets down. Usually a conductor never gets down from the bus en route. Not until the bus has reached its final stop. But this one does. I know this one. I encounter him at least a couple of times a week, when our times coincide. Unlike most of the young bus conductors nowadays, this one is older. A man who has seen better and younger days and is now counting his years to the retirement. He must have some health problem for he always gets down from the bus at the Andheri Bus Depot. He goes into the depot relieves himself and comes back. can't blame him. A traumatic bladder can be a real pain. Especially when trapped inside a bus, where every jolt sends a fresh stab of pain through your underbelly. It must give him quite a bit of relief. For he is usually cranky, until he relieves himself, after which his is quite calm and normal.
It takes him 5 minutes, that's all. But the passengers get cranky. For those 5 minutes in the rush hour can mean a late mark for an office employee. A true Mumbaikar is so terminally frustrated of traffic jams and crowded public transport, that he will die trying to catch a bus or a train, but will never tolerate waiting. Its just not in our blood. So it was not surprising when people started whining about the actually marginal, but apparently monumental delay. I know the feeling. I have whined a few times before. A guy besides me says: "What is this? How long will this idiot take? He has conveniently gone to take a nice piss. And a shit too, probably. And here we are stuck for God knows how long. What a bloody swine..."
I kept quiet. But the whiner continued. Finally something snapped inside me. I told him that the conductor was human too. Was he not entitled to a moment to relieve himself? If we are in the same fix as him, we can get down at our destination and relieve ourselves. But he has to travel from the first stop to the last with no prospect of a break... But I could see by the look on his face that he was not convinced. He was soon joined by others. One of them said that if the fellow had health problems and was getting too old to perform his job then he should quit... I was shocked... What has the world come to? What have we, city-dwellers, become?
The other day someone from a small town looking for a suitable match for their girl told me the first thing they were looking for in a guy was that he should be a city-dweller. This small-town father was sick of the slow life in the town. He wanted his daughter to have better opportunities. And only a city with its infinite resources and opportunities could promise her a good life... All sound logic - it reminded me of a book I recently came across, titled - Cities Are Good For You... It explored similar logical reasoning enumerating the benefits of city-dwelling... All true and logical... Except for one small side-effect...
Everyone flocks to the city. Everyone wants a slice of their favourite dream come true... But that makes the city a very crowded place. Resources stretched thin. Heavy competition everywhere. More mouths to feed. Less space to live. Lesser air to breathe. More lives to support... In this milling chaos, one is reduced to being like an animal... Living in highly expensive claustrophobic little spaces we call a home, eating costly stale food. Drinking chlorinated water. Breathing polluted dust-riddled stale air... This is the life of a city dweller - a person reduced to living a life of an animal, while wearing t-shirts that talk about being human... Have you seen people clamouring and struggling to get into the trains at Andheri or Dadar railway stations during peak hours? Experience it and you will understand...
For sure, Cities are good for us... As long as we are ok with living like desperate animals...
The bus stops at Andheri station bus stop. The stop is right outside the Andheri Station Bus Depot (West). The conductor gets down. Usually a conductor never gets down from the bus en route. Not until the bus has reached its final stop. But this one does. I know this one. I encounter him at least a couple of times a week, when our times coincide. Unlike most of the young bus conductors nowadays, this one is older. A man who has seen better and younger days and is now counting his years to the retirement. He must have some health problem for he always gets down from the bus at the Andheri Bus Depot. He goes into the depot relieves himself and comes back. can't blame him. A traumatic bladder can be a real pain. Especially when trapped inside a bus, where every jolt sends a fresh stab of pain through your underbelly. It must give him quite a bit of relief. For he is usually cranky, until he relieves himself, after which his is quite calm and normal.
It takes him 5 minutes, that's all. But the passengers get cranky. For those 5 minutes in the rush hour can mean a late mark for an office employee. A true Mumbaikar is so terminally frustrated of traffic jams and crowded public transport, that he will die trying to catch a bus or a train, but will never tolerate waiting. Its just not in our blood. So it was not surprising when people started whining about the actually marginal, but apparently monumental delay. I know the feeling. I have whined a few times before. A guy besides me says: "What is this? How long will this idiot take? He has conveniently gone to take a nice piss. And a shit too, probably. And here we are stuck for God knows how long. What a bloody swine..."
I kept quiet. But the whiner continued. Finally something snapped inside me. I told him that the conductor was human too. Was he not entitled to a moment to relieve himself? If we are in the same fix as him, we can get down at our destination and relieve ourselves. But he has to travel from the first stop to the last with no prospect of a break... But I could see by the look on his face that he was not convinced. He was soon joined by others. One of them said that if the fellow had health problems and was getting too old to perform his job then he should quit... I was shocked... What has the world come to? What have we, city-dwellers, become?
The other day someone from a small town looking for a suitable match for their girl told me the first thing they were looking for in a guy was that he should be a city-dweller. This small-town father was sick of the slow life in the town. He wanted his daughter to have better opportunities. And only a city with its infinite resources and opportunities could promise her a good life... All sound logic - it reminded me of a book I recently came across, titled - Cities Are Good For You... It explored similar logical reasoning enumerating the benefits of city-dwelling... All true and logical... Except for one small side-effect...
Everyone flocks to the city. Everyone wants a slice of their favourite dream come true... But that makes the city a very crowded place. Resources stretched thin. Heavy competition everywhere. More mouths to feed. Less space to live. Lesser air to breathe. More lives to support... In this milling chaos, one is reduced to being like an animal... Living in highly expensive claustrophobic little spaces we call a home, eating costly stale food. Drinking chlorinated water. Breathing polluted dust-riddled stale air... This is the life of a city dweller - a person reduced to living a life of an animal, while wearing t-shirts that talk about being human... Have you seen people clamouring and struggling to get into the trains at Andheri or Dadar railway stations during peak hours? Experience it and you will understand...
For sure, Cities are good for us... As long as we are ok with living like desperate animals...
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