Every time I pass a crowded bus stop during rush hour, in the rains, I look at people, waiting for a bus, I remember a small childhood incident that has remained with me over the years.
I was in the 10th grade perhaps. My mother taught in the same school in which I studied. So often after school, we would come back together. It was the age when I did not like being too close to my parents. What looks stupid now, felt adventurous then. I would constantly look for opportunities to delay or leave early so that Mom and I did not have to be in the same bus.
We had to walk a long way from the school to take a bus that dropped us at the gate of our house. Other options required a shorter walk but a change of routes in the middle, which used to be cumbersome.
Those days, during rush hour, buses would come over-loaded. People hanging to it would almost spill out of the rear doors. Conductors would often signal the drivers to not halt, much before the stop would arrive. Our trained ears would pick it up from far. Two quick tings of the bell meant, ‘go’. We would then immediately look for passengers waiting to disembark near the front door. If there was even one, we would run ahead. When the bus stopped, we would jump in. And hang.
This day it rained heavily. Mom and I were almost fully drenched by the end of the long walk despite our umbrellas. Buses came and went. In those days, they came in gaps of 15 to 20 minutes each. For a long time none of them stopped. None of them had any passenger to offload either. Soon the bus stop itself was milling with burgeoning crowd of waiting passengers. Each and every one dying to get home.
I knew my Mom was unwell that day. She even looked unwell. She looked as if she was just about hanging in there. The wait was perhaps killing her. The rain. The pain of standing at the stop for such a long time. The exhaustion of walking that distance, being unwell. And the uncertainty. Neither the rush nor the rain was abating any time soon. Though I never questioned then, on hind sight, I presume she did not have enough money to hail a cab. Or who knows, perhaps there was no cab available that day.
A bus came. Same as before. People hanging out, ready to tumble down. I heard the bell inside go two tings. Meaning the bus was not stopping again. But I saw a passenger waiting to alight. So I ran. Instinctively. The bus passed the stop and after a while, slowed down. I reached just in time to poke a small foothold between other crowding feet, find some thing to hold on to and hang.
There was only one passenger who had to get down. Before others could run and catch up, the bus quickly took speed. I suddenly remembered and looked back. My mom was looking at me. As our eyes met, she gestured me to go ahead, go home and not get down. I suddenly felt so sad for her. I couldn’t even get down. The bus had taken a good speed. As long as I could see, we kept looking at each other. She had a smile in her face. As if the triumph was her’s.
Such are mothers.
She came home very late that night. Don’t remember when. Don’t remember in what shape. Don’t even remember what we talked about, once she was back.
All that plays in my memory, is the umbrella, the rain over it, and my mom huddled under, with that look in her eyes. Was it relief, that I was on my way home? Was it despair that I deserted her? Was it a mix of both fighting the other? Or was some kind of an emotional relief showing through her physical pain? I’ll never know.
She is no more. It’ll be a year in a few days. I won’t ever be able to go back and reminisce with her this day, this incident.
What will however stay with me is that crazy evening at a bus stop in the Bombay rains.
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