Kanpur to Delhi

Recently I had fallen into a rut and was stagnating. I seemed to be dragging on and each day seemed wasted. I wasn’t dong justice to anything; neither to my academics nor to any of my other interests. I felt like I had to run away from this place just to keep sane. So I decided to go home and seeing that almost all trains were full, and not feeling like standing in the reservation counter, I hopped on to a bus from the main gate for Delhi.
I’d been told that it takes about ten hours to reach Delhi from Kanpur. On the way, about half an hour later, two students had had an altercation with the conductor. Apparently they had a bus-pass which the conductor refused to recognise as valid and they wouldn’t pay the fare. And neither would they get out, in defiance of the conductor’s suggestions. “So be it” said the conductor. “Neither will the bus move.”
“Thik hai! Hum bhi baithe rahenge! Humko chutiya samajh rakhe ho kya?”, thus spake the students…and there matters stood. People were getting restive, the bus was standing in the middle of a lonely highway, and neither side was willing to yield. Finally, after the space of nearly a half hour, and in the wake of an intense stream of invective (whose range was pretty limited), the students paid and the bus resumed. All broke into smiles of relief. It’s not a pleasant feeling to be stranded miles away from anywhere.
Not too many people were inside. I’d got in at 2.00 pm and at 3.30 pm or so the bus stopped at Kannauj, and here it seemed like the bus had suddenly become a popular favourite amongst travellers. It suddenly became full. A large Muslim family had embarked. They had a good amount of baggage. They spoke in Hindi in loud and careless language. One of them was called “Sakeel”. They dressed typically. Shirts were tucked into the trousers and a belt around the waist. Their hair was well oiled. They looked like they were from some small town, and from their language and dress it was obvious that they were slightly below the lower middle class in the economic strata.
Their faces were sweaty and dusty. From their bearing it appeared that they were used to it. The women wore saris that were creased and smudged. They settled into the bus with elan which suggested that this was how they usually travelled. They held converse from all corners of the bus in loud, cheerful language, and the mothers chided, abused and slapped their children in the way a goldsmith hammers the gold (hey…I’m not talking about a skilled goldsmith!)…and the next moment would smile as casually or shout at a relative three seats behind. The child’s wails would be further silenced by similar methods.
A woman, mother to the child she was carrying sat beside the window on the seat on which I was sitting. Next to her, and to my right was a stout, old woman, probably her mother or in-law. Between these two was wedged a little girl of about seven. Both looked typically Indian muslim women from the way they wore their saris, almost like gowns (perhaps so that it would serve as a ready burqa, though I never ever saw them use it thus), and their jewellery, which to me looked redolent of classic mughal architecture, and the way they chewed their betel leaves. The bus was full. The people standing had to jostle for space with each other and the luggage strewn on the floor. I was feeling crammed for space and it was about all I could to keep myself from falling over. The bus was making its way through a crowded part of the town. Vehicles were blaring their horns outside like crazy and inside it was stuffy and there was a hint of peevishness in the air. Children were wailing from all corners of the bus. The woman beside the window was constantly beating and abusing her child, but the girl in the middle had by far a much worse deal; she being hit by both the women and receiving a more strongly worded choice of abuse…at one point being called “suar ki bacchi” by the woman beside the window. I concluded that they were not mother and daughter. At one point upon being hit, she turned her eyes towards me, and I shudddered and had to look away. I realized how truthful a window the eyes are to all that is felt inside. That single glance was enough to convey exactly what she felt, and for a moment, I felt the way she felt. No amount of words or pages can convey that. (Conrad had talked about us living in a dream, and each dream being different from the other, and the impossibility of two dreams merging. Maybe there are times when this does not happen)
After a while the roads cleared and we were on the highway again, making good speed. Except for a stop in another town, we went non-stop till 6.30, where ther was another stop. At 7.15 pm the muslim family got down at Gurgaon and the bus cleared. I could stretch out and relax. Till about 8.30 pm very little happened. The bus trundled on it’s monotonous way. I had finished my packet of Brittania cake I’d bought in Kanpur and was feeling hungry and tired. To make matters worse the first signs of a headache were making themselves felt. My main concern was like when the fuck I’m going to reach Delhi, and what my folks would say, and how I was to make my way from the bus depot to home, and if I would faint from exhaustion on the way or if I would reach at all. Thankfully at about 8.30 pm the bus stopped at a place called Bewar, where we had dinner at a dhaba. It revived me considerably and my fears now seemed exaggerated.
We resumed. At about 11.00 pm or so a group of four young men entered the bus at Aligarh. They were carrying huge bags in their hands. These men were also huge, well over six feet tall. They were dressed like showy kids in Delhi colleges. Their way of speaking was boisterous and unruly. They laughed loudly and talked without reserve. From their language I felt that we were nearing Delhi. Indeed, the moment they entered, one of them said to another one, “abe band ke lund kya kar raha hai!” The choice of his words and his manner of speaking had Delhi written all over it. I felt a bit cheerful after this, as I felt Delhi must be close now. I had not heard this kind of language for some time and I was feeling slightly nostalgic; not having been in Delhi for nearly six months…Outside the night was dark and cold and I had to draw my jacket closer around me.
The bus was now being stopped every ten minutes or so, and at each such interruption a formidable looking policeman of Delhi Police (With You, For You, Always) would enter and run his torch along the length of the bus (even though the lights were on inside) and then go out seemingly satisfied. This had happened thrice till now. From the talk that took place between the conductor and the Police it transpired that some thieves were on the run and the police were stopping and checking each bus on the highway. The next time it happened, the policeman asked for “the four courier guys who’d got in at Aligarh”. He disliked their flippant behaviour and had them open their bags to show what they contained. Apparently they contained only lifafe’s to be dispatched.
After this the journey was uneventful, and the long and short of it was that I found myself at the Anand Vihar Bus Depot in New Delhi at about 2.30 am on the 4th of February. It was a Saturday. From there I took a pre-paid auto and reached home around 3.00 am. My mom and sis were pleasantly surprised and I did not wake up my dad. I’d made this impromptu decision to come here as I wanted some peace and so that I could reflect on myself and things in general…so that things inside my mind could rearrange themselves and settle down…so that I could find time to write something. Another important reason was the World Book Fair (WBF) which was to end on that day itself…