A girl with a backpack boards the bus at Modi Flour Mills in Okhla; she will disembark at the next stop, her smile the ticket to a free ride. The driver is willing to look the other way . At the next stop, however, I must turn down unruly schoolchildren who do not intend to buy tickets: “Dus rupaiya ticket, pass nahi chalega.”

Clocking in at 3.50 pm at the timekeeping post at Ambedkar Nagar, the bus pulls up noiselessly to admit a drove of passengers. Grateful for the glass pane divider in front of the conductor’s seat—a woman in khaki can attract more than a few curious glances—I hand out tickets for Chirag Dilli, Moolchand and Red Fort, tearing the scraps of white paper at the destination and returning change. The charge of the commuters—some first-timers who ask for clarifications (“Daryaganj jayegi?)—is too urgent, and Ayub steps in.

The spirit of mobility binds all—college-goers, labourers, cloth merchants and turbaned old men—in the everydayness of urban life. An old-timer buttonholes a man in a skullcap in a discursive conversation; a woman catches her forty winks; an executive’s file misses someone’s eye by a hair’s breadth. The doors

open, reminding me that I am not one of them, not today, and I get busy disbursing tickets, folding notes and rummaging for change in Ayub’s leather pouch, all the while entreating the flock not to throng the doorway.

At ITO, a passenger found to be undercharged is pulled up by Om Prakash, the traffic supervisor who has just boarded the bus to check tickets. After some deliberation, he charges a fine of Rs 100 and hands the defaulter a receipt. Prakash claims to catch 20-22 freeloaders on DTC’s A/C buses in the course of his eight-hour shift.

... contd.