Somehow, travelling in buses seems to offer one, possibly not a greater insight into the lives of people, but at least a much wider view of the lives of people than travelling by any other means of transport does in Delhi: the metro is too crowded to do anything other than try to stay alive by ensuring that one has enough space to breathe in it, and cars, along with other forms of private transport, for obvious reasons, make it next to impossible for one to see beyond the end of one’s nose (while travelling, anyway).
That being said, it isn’t always clear that the sights which travelling in a bus are sights which one would actually want to see, nor are the experiences which one has necessarily those which one would want to have.
In the last twelve hours, I’ve seen in buses, a man with an awful wound on his leg – his skin had peeled off and the wound was white in places. It seemed pretty clear that he hadn’t had access to good medical care, if at all any medical care; God knows, I’ve never seen a wound like that on a middle class person or anyone higher up on the socio-economic scale.
After that, I found that there was no place to sit down on the bus. There were some seats reserved for women, and I asked a man sitting in one of them to get up, and give me the seat. He wasn’t pleased and said so in no uncertain terms, on the top of his voice, to everyone within earshot. And there’s a part of me which sympathises with what his sentiments: he said that he had paid for a ticket too and that he shouldn’t have to get up just because the seat was reserved for women.
Ordinarily, I don’t think that I would have asked him to get up but I was feeling ill and tired, and I wanted to sit down. It seemed so much easier to tell the chap that he was sitting in a seat reserved for women, than to try explaining that I didn’t feel well especially considering that I didn’t look unwell at all. I wouldn’t want to try telling anyone that I wasn’t feeling unwell unless my being unwell was clearly visible for fear of encountering disbelieving looks and protestations pointing out that I didn’t in fact look unwell. If there was one stereotype that I would love to see changed, it is the stereotype that people who are not well or who are not abled-bodied for whatever reason must also look unwell or disabled at first glance.
Of course, it didn’t really help that the Women’s Reservation Bill has been in the news, and the very idea of reservations for women in any arena whether it be in law-making bodies or in buses is not something which many men (at least among those I know) are especially enthusiastic about.
Finally, I spent what felt like hours sitting next to a woman sobbing her heart out. She was holding a baby and I have no idea of what she was upset about – she didn’t respond when I asked her and I ultimately figured that it’d be kinder to give her what space she seemed to want. She seemed to be alone while she was sitting next to me, but when she got off the bus, it wasn’t alone. Some man, who I assumed was her husband, tapped her on the shoulder and the three of them – man, woman, and baby – got off the bus. I was left wondering why on earth he had left her entirely to her own devices all the time that she was crying.
I’m not entirely certain what to make of travelling in Delhi’s buses.
That being said, it isn’t always clear that the sights which travelling in a bus are sights which one would actually want to see, nor are the experiences which one has necessarily those which one would want to have.
In the last twelve hours, I’ve seen in buses, a man with an awful wound on his leg – his skin had peeled off and the wound was white in places. It seemed pretty clear that he hadn’t had access to good medical care, if at all any medical care; God knows, I’ve never seen a wound like that on a middle class person or anyone higher up on the socio-economic scale.
After that, I found that there was no place to sit down on the bus. There were some seats reserved for women, and I asked a man sitting in one of them to get up, and give me the seat. He wasn’t pleased and said so in no uncertain terms, on the top of his voice, to everyone within earshot. And there’s a part of me which sympathises with what his sentiments: he said that he had paid for a ticket too and that he shouldn’t have to get up just because the seat was reserved for women.
Ordinarily, I don’t think that I would have asked him to get up but I was feeling ill and tired, and I wanted to sit down. It seemed so much easier to tell the chap that he was sitting in a seat reserved for women, than to try explaining that I didn’t feel well especially considering that I didn’t look unwell at all. I wouldn’t want to try telling anyone that I wasn’t feeling unwell unless my being unwell was clearly visible for fear of encountering disbelieving looks and protestations pointing out that I didn’t in fact look unwell. If there was one stereotype that I would love to see changed, it is the stereotype that people who are not well or who are not abled-bodied for whatever reason must also look unwell or disabled at first glance.
Of course, it didn’t really help that the Women’s Reservation Bill has been in the news, and the very idea of reservations for women in any arena whether it be in law-making bodies or in buses is not something which many men (at least among those I know) are especially enthusiastic about.
Finally, I spent what felt like hours sitting next to a woman sobbing her heart out. She was holding a baby and I have no idea of what she was upset about – she didn’t respond when I asked her and I ultimately figured that it’d be kinder to give her what space she seemed to want. She seemed to be alone while she was sitting next to me, but when she got off the bus, it wasn’t alone. Some man, who I assumed was her husband, tapped her on the shoulder and the three of them – man, woman, and baby – got off the bus. I was left wondering why on earth he had left her entirely to her own devices all the time that she was crying.
I’m not entirely certain what to make of travelling in Delhi’s buses.