PS to The Bus Journey

This is a follow up to 'The Bus Journey'. This is written with me sitting at my room, having watched ManUtd win a match yesterday, and having chatted with friends from college the whole day. So I will be more cheerful than when I was sitting in that bus, in a seat with no backrest. At least, I will be the usual me.

So this lady (I told you, I am in much better mood) tells me "I am not at all comfortable sitting near a man". I was not sure if I should laugh, cry or jump up and  down. This lady who had a laptop bag in her possession which I take as an evidence enough to assume that she was working for an IT firm, travelling to a metropolis from a decently large city would have trouble sitting near a man for a bus journey. I didn't know how to react, and looking back, I was being more than generous when I told her "Okay, fair enough!".

Then I asked the conductor what I should do. He was helpless and conveyed the same to me with a smile and throwing his arms to his sides. But then he became his bus conductor self and asked me: "Why don't you take my seat?". He pointed to his seat near the front door and the drivers cabin. I ask him "What will you do?" and he replied "I will manage".

So I went and sat in this seat, and pull out my phone to call one of my friends and tell him how ridiculous this whole thing is. Seconds after I had hung up the call, the realization daunted on me that the seat had no back rest. Sitting almost 8 hours in a bus seat with no backrest? No way. I turned around to look where the conductor was, and spotted him sleeping on a bed-cloth on the floor. This is turning out to be a bad dream, I thought and as I turned back to face the highway, I saw the lady and her watter bottle sleeping tight in the seat.

The rest of the night was spent texting close friends, listening to a lot of Amr Diab, staring at the highway, occasionally glancing at the lady and the water bottle, and hoping to connect eyes with the driver who was as mechanical as a bus driver could be on a deserted highway. This was overlapped by sitting on 'the' seat or standing up to stretch my legs.

Two days after this I described this to a friend of mine and he suggested to me that this lady could have had nasty experiences sitting in a bus with a man and hence the behavior. I found that convincing enough.

So rounding off, I would say "fair enough" and this time I am not being generous