Sometimes you feel like asking, \u2018What\u2019s worse than working on a holiday?\u2019 And your experience tells you, \u2018It\u2019s starting your work early on a holiday.\u2019 While the rest of your neighborhood is busy having a second round of morning tea and planning for an elaborate lunch, you\u2019re thinking, \u2018Damn, I\u2019m late, again!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the day started like that, for yours truly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a brisk walk, I was able to get to a standing microbus. The conductor \u2013 with a mask on his face and wad of money in one hand \u2013 waves me to hurry in, as if I was the passenger they have been waiting for ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once I get in, the vehiclewallah\u2019s hurry evaporated. They are in no mood to move now. Thankfully, there are less people today. I don\u2019t have to feel oversized for the vehicle today. No squeezing in. I proceed to take the backseat, my favorite. No difficulty at all. Apart from that, everything is normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Passengers with weary looks make me feel as if they were forced to hurry out of their abode, just like me, against their wishes. A Bollywood number from the \u201990s \u2013 \u2018Maine pyar tum hi se kiya hai\u2019 \u2013 blares out of the speakers hidden below the seats. The speakers seem to be placed so strategically that the sound coming out of them vibrates your being. Oblivious to all that, the driver and conductor are urging people to get in, as if they are competing on a decibel scale. Just like any other day!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything is normal, except\u2026 There\u2019s something that just doesn\u2019t seem like everyday. Is it the smell? The size of the bus? Or the seat? And just at that point, it struck yours truly like a lightning. It\u2019s not him. Yes, the conductor isn\u2019t a \u2018HE\u2019. The voice tells him, it\u2019s a lady. He gazes out of the window to have a look at her, ever fearful of being caught in a case of VAW (violence against women) for staring too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the first time I had seen a lady conductor in a microbus in Kathmandu. And what I saw didn\u2019t fail to make an impression on me. Dressed in a full-length black track suit, wearing a mask and a woolen cap on the head, the conductor was busy in her duty. The body language \u2013 hand waving, small walk in circles, shrug of shoulders \u2013 hardly suggesting she was a woman. The authority with which she was conducting her business, as the microbus moved on, gave no hint at all that she was an alien in a man\u2019s world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Except, she was polite to passengers.
Unlike every other day, I saw a conductor carefully asking each and every passenger where they got in and where they intended to get off. And she asked every passenger, if they had an identity card (for discount on fare).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another microbus, competing for passengers, overtook the automobile I was in, with a roar. Louder than the engine\u2019s roar was a shout of a conductor from that vehicle. The adolescent boy, with hair not trimmed from the time he was a toddler, was hurling expletives at us for being slow. The words from the yet-to-be man improved upon my vocabulary as I wondered at richness of our language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just then, the series of Bollywood songs stopped, followed by an English number. Justin Bieber? Or Miley Cyrus? I had no clue. Seems the driver couldn\u2019t fathom it, either. He stopped the music altogether, mumbling something only he could understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the following silence, you could hear two of my fellow passengers talking. A boy and a girl in their school uniforms. Busy in their conversation, they hadn\u2019t found out the silence. The girl was saying, \u201cThank God, mom didn\u2019t ask too many questions for coming out on Buddha Purnima. I was so scared. What did you say at home?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boy said, \u201cI stared at my dad before shouting at mom because I didn\u2019t like the tea she served. They didn\u2019t ask anything. I think they were scared of me. Fooled them!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The girl, holding his hand tightly, said, \u201cWe should call it Buddhu Purnima. You made Buddhu out of your mom.\u201d
The giggles that followed made yours truly wonder: \u2018Did the Buddha just hear that?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PS: This write-up appeared in the weekend edition of Republica, The Week, on 16 May, 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes you feel like asking, \u2018What\u2019s worse than working on a holiday?\u2019 And your experience tells you, \u2018It\u2019s starting your work early on a holiday.\u2019 While the rest of your neighborhood is busy having a second round of morning tea and planning for an elaborate lunch, you\u2019re thinking, \u2018Damn, I\u2019m late, again!\u2019 And the day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somesh.com.np\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}