Bags heavy, legs strained, face sleepy, I landed on Ludhiana soil. It was around 10 at night, and shops were closed. Though it was spring time, I had some sweat on my face, perhaps a result of sitting in the bus for 8 hours (with only one stoppage in the way which lasted twenty minutes), a bus that was filled with passengers at all times.
The moon of Ludhiana resembled the moon of Delhi, three-hundred kilometres away, only a little clearer than that. A little, because both the cities share the common fault of being two of the most polluted cities across the globe.
Off from the bus, I ran a quick glimpse over my belongings – the bag that lay on the road, the bag that was hung on my shoulders – then patted my pockets for mobile phone and wallet – then my face for the mask. This took only a moment, and then the bus started to carry on its journey. On its own way. At the exact moment, as if having felt my momentary satisfaction.
Started at 2 in the afternoon, I had expected to reach earlier than this. But roads didn’t like the proposal. So I was late, was already sleepy. I crossed the road (traffic was thin), and found an auto-rickshaw waiting for passengers like me. Exchange of a word with the autowallah, and then I was on its seat.
The engine was on, but he wouldn’t drive for some time: he would wait for more passengers. In two minutes, one passenger came, and took the seat beside me.
But the autowallah would still not go. Another came in five minutes, and took a seat in front of mine. The autowallah sat on his driving seat, his hands on the handle. But foot not on the gas pedal. Still not ready. Still not wanting to move. His head turned as backward as possible, searching for more passengers, searching nearby, searching in the distance, on this side of the road and that side of the road.
My initial emotion was annoyance. What was he waiting for. Weren’t we three enough, so late in the day, with one of us already sleepy? Maybe a tad of this annoyance reflected on my face, but no one paid attention. Fellow passengers in their mobile phones, the autowallah in his quest.
Conflict of interest in an area of forty square feet.
Two minutes later, disappointed, he pressed the pedal and decided to start. Fifteen minutes later, I was at home, reunited with my family in person. After two weeks of my first of the many periodic separations from it.
But that image remains fresh in the mind: me annoyed, and the autowallah still looking around. Every time I go back to the image, I am more convinced than the last time that no person would have searched for more passengers with three already seated inside, at 10 pm in the night, unless it was such a need.
Unless it was such a need.
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