Office Journeys...

 

                 

Having missed the regular bus for Office, I was running late. It could have been worse but it was thankfully, a Friday, which meant that I could just slip into a pair of jeans and head for Office.

   I did not have to wait for long for another bus to arrive, it came almost immediately. Thanks to some brilliant planning on part of the local Government, the road outside my house is always dug up and traffic snarls are as common as muck. It then immediately opens into a broad, lush road. Drivers can’t resist speeding there having just gotten out of a traffic jam.

Our Bus Driver was no different. We were cruising at a fairly high speed. I was standing by the rear window when the Driver applied a sudden brake. Everyone was thrown out of his seat and poor standees like me fell upon poorer standees. Some people bumped their heads on the railing and some, like our Bus Conductor, just swore. It was evident that the bus had run over someone. Slowly the bus moved ahead. It was moving too slowly, in inches,  obviously the driver was carefully avoiding something. The passengers were glued to their windows, anxiously looking at the small crowd that had already gathered.

           I was the first one to see it. As the Bus moved ahead at a snail’s pace, I saw a puppy lying on the road. It was very small and was lying helplessly on the road. On the other side of the road was it’s Mother, down to her hunches and whimpering, fearing the worst. The other passengers too saw the scene and realised that their Bus had ran over someone who had a life. The anger immediately dissipated and it gave way to an overwhelming wave of pity. Nothing evokes more guilt than a dead puppy. We all were sadly looking at the dead creature and the bus was also trundling guiltily.

       And then it happened! The puppy moved a little and in one moment, it was jumping around as if it got a new life. Apparently, the driver had saved a life and not taken one. It’s mother was caressing it and jumping at the same it. I could feel the Mother’s relief in it’s joyous barking. And then I heard clapping. People around me were jumping around and clapping as well..!!

Foyer Voyeur..!

“When the chips are down, these civilized men won’t hesitate to eat each other!”

This is a dialogue from the movie The Dark Knight. This is where The Joker tries to explain to The Batman about the futility of standing up for the civilized society. The Joker had the best dialogues in the movie but I felt this was a little too much. I rolled my eyes back then. Later, the more I thought about it, the more it became evident. Scratch the surface, our holier-than-thou façade starts to fade and we can see the real self. The Self that The Joker was alluding to. The one that would not hesitate to kill The Other at the drop of a hat. It is well concealed beneath the pleasantries and the etiquettes. The real us is always lurking near the surface though. It’s like a bunch of vampires trying hard to lead a life between a bevy of beautiful girls. This façade nauseates me. Underneath the masquerade, everybody is a voyeur and a savage.

It is not a very unknown part of us. Man recognized his Frankenstein long back, but we have now started to feed the voyeur within us. It is despicable. Collect some celebrities and put them in a room full of cameras for the world to see. We all sit glued to it, fascinated, watching the celebrity eat and drink like us. It makes us feel better when we see that they too, break wind like us. And if not celebrities, bring a middle aged Mom to the hot seat and put her through the most uncomfortable and sadistic of questions and make her answer them for the lure of money. The audience won’t even know the name of the 50 something Mom and, in all probability, would never bump into her, yet they are transfixed to the seat during the commercial break post which she will reveal her husband’s role in her son’s birth. People forget to eat, they wait with bated breath as the skeletons tumble out of her closet.

The other day, Amma was watching something on her Tamil channel. It was the interview of a man who lost his limbs while trying to cross railway tracks. He explained how the railway station has no foot-over-bridge for people to cross over and said, amidst tears, how his life had grinded to a full stop after the accident. That he was the sole breadwinner of a poor family and how his illiterate wife now struggles to make both ends meet. It was immediately followed by the story of a Kid who was blinded in the Slumdog Millionaire style. The next week they were to air the story of a Kid who was raped by her father. I was all ears, disgusted with myself for being the voyeur that I was.

The other day, I was at the bus stop, at 12.30 AM. It was the last bus of the day and we were an impatient crowd waiting for it. It arrived finally and all hell broke loose. People jumped upon the bus like a pack of wolves over a solitary lamb. Forget about queue etiquettes and chivalry, even children were not spared. Once inside the bus did people realise that it was an empty bus. People were now smiling sheepishly at each other from the comforts of their window seats.

It disgusts me. When I see people craning their neck from the window of a bus to get a better view of the drunkard who is beating his wife or when people rush too see an accident site and are almost disappointed when there are no casualties. Or when I see civilized women pull each other’s hair in public over matters as quotidian as a window seat in a bus and when the other men stand on their seats to get a better view of the fight.

These educated educated people define a voyeur as the ‘one who peeps into the ladies’ rooms.’ What about the people who peep into other’s lives? Aren’t they voyeurs as well?

Callousness, at it’s best!

This incident had occurred 3 or 4 years back. It is so clear in my mind that it seems that it was only yesterday when this occurred. I don’t know what reminded me of this today.

That day, I was on my way back home from Chembur in a bus. It was 8.00PM and the bus was pretty crowded. I had managed to get a seat and was thanking my stars profusely.

“Maitri Park!” The Bus Conductor shouted.

Some people alighted and among those who came aboard were these two young girls who were apparently returning home from college or from work. They marched straight towards the seats reserved for the ladies and were happy to have found two men seated there. They simply went to them and tapped on their shoulders. One was a young man who got up immediately and made way for the ladies. The other man chose to ignore them. He was a bit older maybe in his mid-fifties.

“Uncle, utho naa! Dikhta nahin hai kyaa ladies seat hai.” One said. Get up, can’t you see that it is a ladies’ seat?

“Haan, dekha!” He replied. “But I am not getting up. The bus was crowded when I boarded it and this was the only vacant seat. You simply can’t barge in like this and ask us to get up!”

“So what? This seat is reserved for the ladies and as per law, you have to vacate it when a Woman asks you to.” She replied.

The argument went on for quite sometime. I was sitting quite close to them and was wondering why was the old man trying to fight over a lost cause. The girls were right and he was needlessly arguing. Soon, the Bus Conductor would intervene and the Old Man would have to get up. Besides, it was a ladies’ seat anyway.

Then, the inevitable happened. One of the girls called out for the Bus Conductor and asked him to resolve the matter. People in Bombay are scared of offending women. The Conductor came promptly and asked the Old Man to get up from the seat. He refused and continued with the same rant that the bus was crowded when he boarded it. The Girls were breathing down the Conductor’s neck. The Conductor became increasingly rude towards the Old Man and called him names. But the Old Man was simply too stubborn.

Finally, the exasperated Conductor asked the Bus Driver to stop at the nearest Police station. A Cop entered the bus and asked what was the commotion all about. Upon learning the facts, the Cop simply asked the Old Man to get up. He refused. The Cop tried to pull him by the collar.

The Old Man tried reasoning with the Cop. He said that he was tired after a long day at work and sat on the Ladies’ seat only as a last resort. He said that he was not young anymore and that the Girls were young and could stand. As it is, one seat was vacant and none of the Girls bothered to sit. They seemed determined to get the old man off the other seat as well.

The Cop slapped the Old Man.The air was thick with anticipation.The Cop then dragged him out of the bus. The Old Man was shouting in indignation. Amidst tears, he shouted that he was an educated individual and was very unfairly treated at the behest of young girls. The Cop slapped him again and took him to the Police Station. There was pin drop silence in the bus. I had not moved an inch. In fact, everyone in the bus was transfixed to one spot. I hate this ugly curiosity with which we watch someone else’s misery. It nauseates me. Today I was a part of the mob as well.

I looked at the girls. It was very evident by now that they were college students. They were trying to look out of the window and see what had happened of the Old Man. One of them seemed to have spotted him. She pointed a finger at something, and both the girls started giggling uncontrollably.

It took all I had in me to control my impotent anger!