Life is Beautiful

Dated: Aug 13th 2002

Elysian and ambivalent feelings fought with one another as the public transport vehicle came to a halt in front of me, and forced me to make amends on my prior decree that one has to wait for hours to get the appropriate commuter bus. But then, I guess, it was just one of those days when all the things click unexpectedly well, and there you are, thinking, “Life is Beautiful”. Still unable to elucidate the event that had just befolded in front of me, I, with the crowd, was forced to mount the bus and occupy, fortunately for me, a window seat.

Comfortably placed, the eyes to wander over the busy bus-station, thronged with people of different caste, creed, colour, language and dress was ineluctable, as I waited for the driver to replenish his depleted vitamins, and it was in this setting that I was able to look, as a non-living and non-emotional soul-less body, over the crowd with their myriad emotions, almost a kaleidoscope of lachrymose, ecstasy, ennui, sanguine and lugubriousness, some travelling from one part of the city to the other, and others who had made this bus-station as their second house.

In multitudes, they moved about, each with a story of his own. The thought never stopped to fascinate me. Invariably, the first to catch my attention was a couple standing near a pillar. Such was the bliss that the company each enjoyed that, for all the bustling around them, they might have been luxuriously placed romantically in a park, engrossed in a subject of common interest. Romance at the bus stand! What an oxymoron! It was as if a soldier feels safe when he’s fighting with the enemy rather than when he’s sleeping at night!

Then there was this blind man, whose apparel suggested his unemployment, and the tiny cigarette between his lips, cupped by his hands suggested his addiction. He inhaled slowly, fully, taking pleasure in every moment, as if there’s no tomorrow. When there was no more left, he slowly paced a few yards with the traditional stick and bumped into the pillar where the couple was. This sudden action brought back the couple into reality, and to follow the norms of regelation, they made their way to the next pillar.

Oblivious of this, the blind man groped around. Wrinkling her nose, a woman carrying a kid of about a year old tried her best to avoid him and resumed my place in waiting for her bus. A philanthropist came on the scene and took the hand of the blind man, and asked him where he wanted to go. Upon obtaining the intelligence, he guided the man to the appropriate bus. How different he was from the woman who ignored the invalid! The mental happiness of the man who helped was pellucid, while the woman repined superfluously and was evidently in dark clouds.

Then a student with overflowing backpack took the seat beside me. Exhaustion and sleep played on his face as he waited for the comforts of his house. The scene was nostalgic of my own teenhood. Then, suddenly, a commotion took place on the platform outside, followed subsequently by a wail of an old woman, purporting the message of her being dispossessed of her valuable carriage. This effected a couple of young volunteers to run behind a fleeing personality. The anger of the woman, predictably, metamorphosed into a collection of tears.

Helpless, as I was, I joined the category of mute spectators, although the adrenaline inside me was running high with all the excitement, but did not venture to give away my prized seat. Not so my companion. Inspite of the apparent exhaustion, the student went out to the platform with renewed vigour, to console the woman. On the pretext of providing medical assistance to her, my ex-companion and the unfortunate victim along with a couple of others made way to a nearby place deemed fit enough to satisfy their requirements.

Atlast, my bus driver resumed his position. All this adventure had quite made the clock stand still and I was unaware of how long it had been. The conductor made his way towards me. I then realised that my wallet was not in its original resting-place. My search became frantic, until it dawned upon me that I, too, was pickpocket. Cursing the God with unprintable expletives and balled fists punching into thin air for giving birth to so many pickpockets, I was forced to sacrifice my seat and dismount the bus.

It was then that my grey cells got into action; a hasty board meeting followed by a brief inquiry into the happenings of the last few moments resulted in a conclusive verdict that the commotion that took place on the platform was just staged as a diversion, while I was one of the real victims, perhaps along with other mute spectators. The fleeing personality, the wailing woman, the student and the men, who rushed to help the woman were all the clever cohorts of a single gang. Depleted of Vitamin M, it made me think, now, “Is Life beautiful?”