Awright, a personal blog post after a long time... yeah, first time maybe...
Recently, I started using my office bus service because, among other things, it is free. The other big reason was that one doesn't have to offer explanations if one decides to be late to office on a Monday morning – just pretend having missed the office bus by a whisker, and demonstrate using a minuscule distance between your thumb and forefinger to your colleagues.
It’s amazing how people tend to seek comfort zones even in a crowd that is waiting for a mode of transport. There could be your old friend from school, the person who sits in the cubicle next to you, one who works on your floor, another who’s in your company but in a different office, or even someone who looks just as lost as you are. There’s the customary chitchat about the weather and grumblings about the ever-decreasing quality of food in the cafeteria. The conversationally challenged are delighted if they have the previous day's cricket match to talk about. (On other days, they’d switch to the bad state of the road they’re standing on.)
And then the first bus would be sighted. It’s an unofficial competition as to who spots the ugly vehicles first, with the winner getting to announce to the rest of the crowd that the Holy Sighting has indeed been made. People supposed to board the bus that arrives first pump their fists in the air and offer mock consolation to the losers. Actually, the jubilation is pretty genuine and some people can barely suppress their glee. Tearless (thankfully) goodbyes are said, and boarders of the first bus march towards the podium, which here are the steps of their bus.
Once inside the bus, protocol takes over like nowhere else. Seated inside would be about a couple of dozen of one’s co-workers, each occupying a window seat or an aisle seat. There would always be a gap of one seat between two occupied seats, and occupiers would guard these buffers of their privacy zealously. Various methods are used to do this, ranging from placing office luggage on the empty seat, or using it as an armrest, or simply sitting on a seat and a half. One is supposed to find a seat that does not violate this arrangement of alternate seating, and at the same time ensure that one’s intrusion into the bus does not wake up anyone who is pretending to sleep. Oh yes, pretending to sleep with your bag on the empty seat next to you doubly ensures that it remains empty. Generally, one gets the least desirable seat in the entire bus, and plonks down for the rest of the journey. But there would always be members of your comfort zone (see para 3) who board the bus after you, and would feel comfortable only next to you. So they would cozy up to you and ask you to shift your base by one seat so that they can plonk down on what should reasonably have been your own seat. And in the process end up annoying the person whose privacy you have violated by eliminating the empty seat between yourself and them, and feeling annoyed yourself for having your own privacy doubly violated by the dolt next to you. You could, however, feel relatively lucky if that dolt is of the conversationally challenged variety (and there was no cricket match the previous day). If not, make a mental note of striking off the dolt from your comfort zone members.
Making for a striking comparison between the standing-for-the-bus to the inside-the-bus stages, chitchat is strongly discouraged. If closed eyes don’t deter any wannabe gabsters, one can simply plug a pair of earphones into one’s ears and try to distract oneself with strains of RJ blabber. Or if one doesn’t have earphones and doesn’t feel like pretending to sleep, just stare out of the window.
Sooner rather than later, depending on traffic conditions and the driver’s relative ignorance of suburban geography, the bus grinds to a halt in front of the office gates, and there’s a final scramble to get off the bus before anyone else. Those who miss out on the initial scramble pretend (yeah there’s a lot of pretence involved in the whole game) they would rather take it easy and be the last to get off – as if they have nothing to do in office, which again is mostly true, as this post testifies!
