Bus Journeys
Updated: May 2, 2021

One fine day, when I was four,
My mother took my sister and me
On a bus ride to Mausi's place,
Back in 1998, it was a forty minute ride
From Bhubaneswar to Cuttack,
That is, if I try and exclude
The traffic at Badambadi Chowk;
We took your standard wobbly intercity bus,
And by the time we reached Rasulgarh -
Which was literally ten minutes
Away from where we had boarded the bus -
There were no less than seventy people,
Some sitting, some standing,
Some plastered onto the door
And other passengers on the bus;
Thankfully, we luckily had a seat to ourselves,
Perhaps because my mother was
A woman travelling with two kids
Aged eleven and four, so fifty points
To the empathy of the people around us;
It was summer, and I know this
Because my mother has recounted
The journey to our entire clan
One number less than infinity,
(the latest recollection being last night)
My sister had slept off throughout the trip,
Something that she still does till this day,
And well, like most four year olds,
I kept turning my (not-so) tiny head
Here and there, with an attempt
To make sense of God knows what;
At Badambadi, most of those plastered people
Got down the bus, and some new faces joined in,
Although this time, only a couple of them
Had the luck to become the lizards of the bus,
And in this new batch of people
Was an old man, not ancient old,
But old enough for my mother to call him "Mausa",
And my mother being the embodiment of compassion,
Offered the man a seat, my seat,
And I was shifted onto her lap,
While my sister napped in her seat,
This man, a complete stranger,
He looked at me, from what I know from my mother,
For at least a minute before proceeding to ask,
"Did anything happen in your family
After she was born", pointing towards
My seemingly confused face, but more than me,
It was my mother who was confused;
"I'm sorry, I didn't get you", my mother answered;
"This child, she is destined to do great things,
And I know it from the aura she exudes",
My mother, still confused,
But not wanting to be disrespectful
Smiled at the man and thanked him,
And woke my sister up from dreamland,
Because Shelter Chowk was finally in sight;
At twenty six, every time I fuck things up,
Which, mind you, is on a very frequent basis,
My mother tells me how the poor man
Was fooled by whatever aura he saw
In a four-year old potato and asks me
The Estimated Time of Arrival of the "great" event,
I then remind her of the time
When another co-passenger she had met
On the bus on the way to college
While I was yet to be born, had told her
That her second child would be
"A dark-skinned, mischievous boy",
But here I am, the googly result.
//NaPoWriMo, Day 25