Bus observations
As of the past quite a long time I’ve been traveling by bus as opposed to travling by train. I can say I upgraded. Speaking to Jessica, my temporary roommate while Manoj travels around spoke about how we’ve traveled in India. Jessica is from California doing a fellowship here (just some background). We both travel by bus now; we’ve both pretty much abandoned the train. I’ve exmpreneced the train, it was an experience, but I feel much better sitting in AC for 3.5 – 5 hours on a comfortable seat rather than in a hot train. Am I spoiling myself…maybe.
Anyway, traveling by bus you often get to make some observations (only on the times when you don’t sleep yourself). I paid attention to the way people slept this past week. Two weeks ago I was so exhausted, I fell asleep before we officially exited Mumbai and woke up when we were in Pune. I sleep with my arms crossed on the bus. This week, the guy sitting next to me held his wrist. He rested both arms on the armrest, and I was left to make my own elbow space in the air. Sometimes there is a young couple, very infrequently they show any kind of affection. Most of the time they’re quite reserved and barely touch. Rarely you’ll see a very public couple who hold hands or rest on each others’ shoulders. Also rare is a single woman traveling. I always feel bad for kids and sometimes worse for their parents. Only once did I see a mom bring a book for a kid to read, and the kid was apparently from my friend’s elementary school. The mom was amazing. She had an under 2 year old and an 9-10 year old. Her management of the two was pretty fantastic.
I was about to think about how it was rare for people to talk on the phone, and if they do, they’re quite polite, covering their mouth over the speaker and barely spending any time on the phone. However, as this thought was crossing my mind, the man right behind me had a very loud, very long conversation. I’d say, for the most part, people are really respectful when it comes to cell phones. Something really nice happened though which counter balanced that. The man in front of me, as he pushed back his chair, asked if that was ok with me, if I was comfortable. I was shocked and impressed.
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