Residing in Delhi and commuting from one part to the other can be toilsome. However, the longer journeys can turn out to be a source of unprecedented amusement…rather often.

A walk to the bus stand and it is unlikely that one is not met with a swanky car with its speakers blaring the latest Punjabi chartbuster. Perhaps, the driver in the car considers it to be an act of charity in its own right, by providing for a fleeting moment of enjoyment to the listless ones walking on the road or the ones at home caught up in their moribund lives.

Taking a bus plying on the route from Nehru Place to Dilshad Garden, I secured myself an aisle seat as the bus was reasonably empty. It was only fairly early in the journey that a commotion was heard in the bus, drawing every one’s attention to it.

Two middle-aged women, both dressed in crisp salwar-kameez, seated one behind the other in one of the frontal seats seemed to have got into an ugly brawl. After careful probing into the matter, one realized that the unequal distribution of the open window space had led to the quarrel. Both kept pushing the window toward the other’s seat so that neither is deprived of even an inch of the loo (warm breeze) blowing in. While the dispute ensued, the hefty man sitting beside me on the window seat, seizing a considerable amount of the seating space available, spat ever and anon comfortably while still toying with his yellow Samsung Corby, strangely unfazed by the brouhaha in the bus.

As one of the two women, in the flow of arguing, called into question the other’s breeding, the other one tersely strewed a volley of expletives to which, an old man sitting right behind the driver, pruned. The causality of the argument had now clearly deviated and the language employed grew more and more crude, betraying their conventional image of the traditional genteel ‘Indian’ woman.

An uncomfortable eight-year old was suddenly heard asking her mother, “Dono aunty jhagda kyun kar rahi hai? Aap to kehte ho bade log ladai nahi karte!” To this, the embarrassed mother quickly hushed her up. The two women involved in the wrangle taking no notice of the innocent question continued and while the decibel levels rose, many of the fellow passengers tried to calm them down, while some others jeered at the situation. Party to the latter group was the conductor, who was seen standing quietly and smiling in his sleeves sheepishly

While a brave volunteer tried to negotiate with the two ladies to put an end to the polemical squabble, a half-bald man dressed in a white shirt and a pair of trousers with the paunch protruding out stood right behind the man, listening intently to the negotiations, but his hands were constantly at work, scratching his groin perseveringly. Blissfully engaged he could certainly not distinguish between the public and the private space or perhaps, it is an indiscriminate cult among the men where they seem to be TOO comfortable in their skin as is evident from the under-use of the public toilets and over-use of every public wall and land available.

All efforts to put down the cheeky row fell flat when finally the conductor intervened and practically shut their jaws. At this point, the bus stopped at Sarai Kale Khan, the destination stop for one of the two ladies and she had to alight from the bus, though unwillingly. The grudge on her face was palpable as she got down, but the other woman continued muttering something under her breath even for a while after she left. Peace was finally restored.

The episode was like a brief interlude in the otherwise monotonous journey of the passengers and the staff of the bus alike, though such situations are not completely rare. Being a regular commuter I can vouch for that. But in this case the situation was far from being grave. The certain arrogance of bearing and loudness of manner and speech in their exhibitionistic animated gestures kept the passengers sufficiently entertained half-way through the journey. As I mentioned in the beginning, it is the idiosyncrasies of people, especially in a metropolitan like Delhi, which never fail to amuse one.

Shaswati Roy Choudhury is a student of English literature, presently awaiting her final year results – B.A.(H) English. Besides having a huge appetite for movies, she likes writing on varied subjects (her writing style is usually personal). Music and dance keep her busy too.

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