At risk of dignity and limb

Nowadays it takes a lot of daring to travel by bus

Niti Paul Mehta

It is only occasionally, when I am left with no choice, that I venture to travel by the city transport bus. I am old and have brittle bones. I no more possess the physical stamina or the unbridled foolish, youthful courage which might spur a person to go all out in search of adventure. But I know many who still risk their life and limb everyday by scrambling into these buses. They always have a good many tales to tell me.

Now, I learn, young toughies sit unmoved in their seats even when the sick, the old and the infirm are standing beside them. Or even when an old woman or one with a child in her arms stands close to them. Almost everyday, when you board a bus, you find some impudent lad shamelessly sprawling on a lady’s seat.

He refuses to get up even when some woman approaches him with a request to vacate the seat for her. Often the argument advanced is ‘‘If a man can travel standing, why can’t a woman?’’

Fancy a young man equating himself with a woman with a child. Such unmanly behaviour was unthinkable in our younger days. We were taught to be considerate towards women and old people. I remember I always looked for someone who was in greater need of a seat than I. As a result I always travelled standing. A woman had just to get into a bus and someone was sure to offer her his seat.

One experience in particular has remained etched in my mind. Once a lady teacher, like me a regular traveller by that bus, came and stood gripping the back of the seat I was occupying. She was too short to reach the strap overhead. I immediately got up and offered the seat to her. From that day she made it a regular practice. She’d walk straight to my seat and stand gripping its back. I couldn’t miss seeing her from such close quarters and so vacated the seat for her. Her behaviour amused me, it never hurt or irritated me.

Today, the young and sturdy, I learn, are quick tempered. They fly at your throat at the slightest provocation. They respect neither age nor sex. They tease girls. They crack dirty, vulgar jokes, make lewd remarks and suggestive gestures, claw and pinch girls and rub their bodies against women and harass them in many other ways. The passengers, a whole bus load of them, sit watching helplessly or simply turn their faces away. Pickpockets have a free run in buses. Now they move in packs. None dare challenge them even when they are found out.

In my younger days, things used to be different. A woman could slap an eve-teaser. A pickpocket would be lucky if he got to the police station with only a few broken bones. The police, of course, was on the side of the public. So used to be the bus crew. Now it seems both are on the other side.

Rowdy, foulmouthed hoodlums ride the tide everywhere. Everyday when you get into a bus, you immediately become aware of the kind of people who dominate the scene.

Some thirty years ago travelling by a bus used to be a civilising experience. Not any more. Now every evening people alight from buses disillusioned and demoralised. But, then, is the atmosphere inside the bus any different from that prevailing in the country at large?

As in a bus, so in offices and everywhere else, the good have lost the power of speech or even the right to protest. They are isolated and reduced to a microscopic minority and sit cowering behind their desks. Corrupt, unscrupulous monsters are holding the country to ransom. The entire country seems to be slipping into the hands of the Chhota Rajans, Chhota Shakeels and Bada Veerappans. The question is: For how long will the nation bear such shame?