School is a funny place to be in. While you’re there, you’re always in
a hurry to get out, grow up and see the world. When you finally do get out,
school keeps beckoning at you, throughout your life; as do
many things associated with it. Insignificant events, which, when they were happening, were of little value to you. For me, one such thing is the
trip to school and back home, aboard the school bus.
Back then, it was such a ‘taken for granted’, everyday fact that I hardly saw any fun in it. Now,
I often miss that experience, knowing it will never return.
In the morning, on the way to school, the inside of the bus made a pretty picture. Rows of children, seated in their sparkling, clean
uniforms, the girls’ hair tied neatly with red ribbons (that was part of
the uniform), the boys sporting the most happening hairstyles of the day;
some of the faces bright, brimming with hopes of another ‘fun day’ at
school; other countenances less certain about what lay ahead of them…
The teachers, though, would always look bright and cheerful. The left
side seats were solely reserved for them (privileges of ruling over young
minds!), where they would confidently perch in their impressive attires (the girls always observed the 'sarees' of their ma’ams, the colors,
the textures, the designs) and start with their fresh stock of gossip. They would talk in hushed, low tones to make sure that none of the juice
penetrated the ears of the ‘immature’ pack that was sharing the bus journey with them. But some of the less reverent of the lot would still
manage to steal patches of dialogues not meant for their consumption. Like what the newly married teacher’s husband was doing with her, how the
maid servant at the elderly teacher’s daughter’s house was proving to
be a pest and of course the spiralling cost of vegetables.
I would often pity the male teachers, who belonged to a pathetic minority. They could never revel in the pleasures of gossiping, knitting
sweaters, eating oranges or peanuts and would have to contend with just sticking their necks out of the windows and watch the same passage of
traffic everyday.
For me, the trip back home in the afternoon was always (well, almost) the more pleasurable one. Even though this was the time when the inside
of the bus turned wild. In fact, this was the reason I liked the post-school session better. For one, it marked the end of another day at
school--all the burdens of the day’s tests, the fury of the math teacher,
the fear of punishment for being lax with the homework were now behind you, at least for some hours (before the next morning broke, that is).
For another, this was the time, when the students were the most relaxed, and the whole jing bang lot would erupt into untamed behaviour. The
uniforms hardly had any stamp of being sparkling, clean-- smeared as they would be generously with mud, ink and turmeric marks. The boys would
get into innovative games, especially invented for the bus trip, the girls would huddle together and bitch about the nasty teachers,
mimic them and throw fits of laughter. Oh! What pleasure it brought to the
bruised and battered souls to speak ill of their tormentors.
When the days were really somber for me, I made sure to get into the bus early, so as to grab a window seat. Simply looking out of the window
would relax me as my mind travelled with the wheels of the bus to observe fellow travellers on the road. Or just watch the scenes in the city.
The day I could catch a celebrity’s car racing ahead of us, I felt as
if I was on another planet. In the uneventful life of a schoolgirl, watching a musician out of the bus window was more than a thrill.
Then, there were the unforgettable characters. I often remember one girl in our bus. She would always eat her tiffin on the way back home. I
would never tire to observe her gulp down her fill. Curiously, she got the same menu everyday, day after day, for years. One banana, two
'chapatis', one full-boiled egg and some sweetened 'malai'. First, she would
peel off the banana and digest it. Next, she would unravel the egg out of its shell and devour it with some salt and pepper. And finally, she
would polish off her meal with the 'chapati' and the 'malai'.
I liked to watch her eat. At times, it made me feel hungry, even greedy for a bite. But that could never happen. I didn’t know her and there
was no ground to strike a rapport. More often that not, I wondered why
it was that she always ate in the bus? What did she do during the official lunch break at the school? I would also wonder why she got the same
lunch everyday. I got the answer to my first question through a friend, who informed me that during the break the girl would be busy playing
and doing wild things. Food was not her priority and so she would clear out the tiffin in the bus so that her mother wouldn’t admonish her for
not eating it. I never got the answer as to why there was no change in her menu, ever. Was it a doctor’s prescription? One would never know.
One day is distinctly etched in my memory. The day I made a very good friend because our school bus broke down. Again, on the way back home.
As the bus stopped for repairs and we got wind that it would take some time before it rolled on, what was there to do with so much time to
kill? So the usually ‘shy’ me broke convention and struck up conversation
with a boy who was in my class but was not yet a friend of mine. He had joined our school a year back and was in a different section before. As
we chatted our way through, arguments were sparked off, heated debate ensued about boys versus girls and before we knew, we had passed the
time and become friends. Good ones at that. I often feel had it not been
for the breaking down of the bus, the two of us would perhaps never
have spoken to each other.
And so goes on the string of memories the school bus weaved for me. As I see little children aboard school buses these days, I often reflect
on the sweet-sour moments I had on the bus. Those moments of intense prayer to God in the morning to spare me the wrath of the ‘cruel’ math
teacher, the times when gazing out of the window meant a fresh breath of
life for me, the flashes when the entire bus would brim with excitement and tension as some boy’s transistor transmitted live cricket
commentary. As I see the cherubic faces, smiling with joy, cracking jokes,
teasing each other, a compulsive grin comes on my face. At times, I spot a
child not mingling with others, just staring out of the window…
