Boarding a BEST bus on a rainy Saturday evening from Borivali to Chembur is not the best of the ideas. And you may curse yourself to death if you did this just outside the railway station, where you had the option of boarding a Mumbai local. But I did board the bus and I did curse myself almost throughout the travel, until was engaged in a love story.
In those moments when I wasn’t cursing myself or reading the newspaper, I engaged myself in my favorite pastime - looking onto and into faces around me. And like it happens most of the times, this time too my maximum onto-into time was spent on a cute little baby girl’s happy face, shifting between her mom and dad, from time to time. She was wearing a bright red frock, a matching set of earrings, and a small ponytail like the Rasna baby (anyone remembers the girl from that ad?). Her dad looked like those big guys with heavy voices we see as sidekicks to the villain in Ram Gopal Varma movies. With his hulk-like hands, he would tickle the baby once in a while and father-daughter duo would burst into loud-sweet laughter. The lady, sitting next to him, was simply smiling when all this was happening. In the times when we get to hear of Indore doctors making big bucks by medically converting the girls into boys and some highly-educated Indians engaging in female foeticide, here was a family, probably from lower middle class, happily loving their girl child. The scene was refreshing and reassuring of goodness.
At times, the kid, while in transit between her parents, would halt in middle of her way and look into my staring eyes. She would wait for a second to study my offered emotion, and when confirmed that I was offering a friendly smile, would burst into laughter and then look at her mother, probably to assure that she is still happy and I have not scared her. Her mother would then throw her routine affirmative smile and hug her, bringing the kid’s face more close to my seat. The kid would then extend her cute little fingers towards me. I would touch them. It was the most therapeutic touch in that maddening traffic. I would tap her fingers as if they were the keys of the piano. I didn’t know her. But I knew her. We were part of a smile exchange programme.
In those moments when I was playing with their daughter and they were assured that I would not harm her, the mom and dad got their time to engage in their small talks. They would say something into each other’s ears and burst into laughter. On one such laughter, the kid got distracted, or probably got bored of playing with me, and started crying. Her mother pulled her from behind and asked, “What happened, beta? Arre nai nai nai…” she opened the window to let some fresh (!) air come in.
“See, there’s another babu. Isn’t he cute?” she pointed to a little kid walking on the footpath with his mother.
The kid looked at the-another-babu for a second, then back to her mom, and back to the-another-babu. Then she stopped crying for a second and then finally smiled. When she was happy and laughing again, she looked at me again and hovered towards me. After being assured that their kid was engaged again, the father leapt back into the moments of romantics, “by the way, the mother of the cute babu, wasn’t any less cute.” His lips widened into a naughty smile. The lady smiled back and tapped on his cheek gently. The man pulled the kid and kissed her with utmost affection. Then he said to her, as if she would understand, to pass it on to mummy. The lady smiled sheepishly and shied away to look outside the window. As the bus tried moving a little further, the moist wind flew her hairs toward the man. He in pretense of holding the kid touched them.
She wasn’t the most beautiful woman, even in the small demographic of the bus neither was he the handsomest man. I am not really sure if theirs was a love marriage or arranged. But how does it all matter? It happens, I think; if we let it. And when it does, it makes everything beautiful all around. Sometimes we close ourselves so tight that it only suffocates us. When kept open, it has the power to let you forget a sucking BEST ride at the least, at other times it may go on to define your whole life. I was in love with this moment of Bollywood-ish happiness offered in a crowded bus. Sometime, the stories around you are so simple and yet powerful that they touch your heart. I think, more than the content of the stories, at times it’s the way they are lived that makes the maximum impact on the watcher.
When I got down, I wasn't as enervated as I had assumed I would. Rather I was engulfed with some wondering thoughts: a few kisses here, and a few hugs there… a few smiles offered and few talks listened to… a few tickles and some giggles… in the BEST buses and the Mumbai locals… in the far and few open spaces available in this city and at the over-crowded seasides… over a rich meal and at times even when one is hungry… on the potholed streets and in the coziness of the closed rooms… on the college campuses and in the office premises… in the shopping malls and on the crowded Mohammad Ali road… despite all the tiredness and madness this city has to offer… Love happens, isn’t it?
P.S.: Their faces are still in my mind while I am done writing this piece and I am still smiling :)
Note: Except first photograph, others in the title image are taken from - indiastreets.wordpress.com, www.flickr.com, www.flixya.com and http://www.fotosearch.com
To read the previous articles in this series, please visit below links:
To read the previous articles in this series, please visit below links:
