The Last Bus of the Day

 

This goes back to the last decade of the last century. Those were the times of very limited means of transport. The last bus would start at half past nine in the night from the district centre for the neighboring district city. Our village fell at a distance of 10 km from the starting point. If the rumble-tumble of circumstances found you stranded at the town at night, you had to muster up every ounce of your flint-hard willpower to get a foothold on the last means of conveyance. If you missed it, pleading a lift with the truck drivers was the last resort. This was lethally inept choice because even if some trucker gave you a lift with a conspicuous condescension, you would lay at the most open disposal of fate as they would be drunk and ply their jangling vehicles with untamed energy.

It was against this background that the last bus acquired a big status. Those were easier times and at half past nine, the town would look deserted like it was midnight. The exotica, the erotica would arrive shaking its tin body with the epitome of teasing virility. It carried an air of romantic freshness as it arrived at long last. The big group of stranded passengers—at that time one would feel like stranded—would welcome it with whistles and catcalls. There would be a stampede to grab the seats. Tempers would ride tautened strings.

There would be dozens of indifferent village drunks among the passengers. Lawlessness went on increasing down the aisle. It reached its peak on the last seat. The conductor looked helpless in doing his ticketing duties. He appeared singlehandedly pitched against millions. He would squeeze through the pandemonium of brawls, lewd songs, guffaws of laughter, cuss words and dirtiest jokes. Free spirit unleashed its lecherous mechanism in full veracity with the evil. Everyone felt so free and independent to go to any extent without the censorial holds of society and traffic laws. Most of the passengers would flatly say ‘no’ to the bus conductor’s request for a ticket. There was no danger of getting caught by the ticket-checking flying squad at night.

There would be a joyful tension and exciting tumult among the law-breaking passengers, and the conductor carried his moist and embittered soul among the enemies. The roadways department chose muscular and brawny types of conductors for this last, tough trip of the day. Amidst the brash and benumbing noise, he tried to salvage some coins in his green leather bag and save the ignominy of not being able to hand out even a single ticket among the crowd. The moment he heard a sorrowful, somber and low-timbred voice, he would swoop down upon the opportunity to sell at least a ticket. More duty-bound types would enter into a verbal spat and even a fistfight with the vagrants. So, all in all, it was a charity round by the roadways. Dozens of passengers on the roof were the freest souls. They were above any rule of society and traffic department. Dark vaults of the sky were the farthest limits for their fun-ride.

Fauji Thekedar, a smalltime construction works contractor, once found him in this pandemonium. He was no Fauji, soldier, but his conduct was so orderly and disciplined that they accepted him as a soldier, more real than the real soldiers in the Indian army, and gave him the honorary title of Fauji. He also justified this title much demonstratively and crossed the paths and bypaths of personal and professional life with an impressive moral grandstanding.

He felt a mortal strain to his sense of uprightness. Sitting on the last seat amidst the vilest revelers, he decided to teach them a lesson. As the bus stopped at a non-descript station in the countryside, he raised a terrible alarm ‘Bomb-Bomb’ and made way for the exit as if flying away from definite doom. He fell on the steps with his face down and his back offered a nice ramp for the fellow passengers to escape into the dark outside. The bus was empty within a minute and Fauji was the sole passenger lying painfully facedown on the steps. From a distance, they waited eagerly for Fauji to be blown away with the bus. There was no blast for five minutes and they slowly came nearer. They got him up and enquired about the bomb. A lot many of them looked eager to start the second installment of punishment. But then a sane voice intervened. ‘His back has enough horses galloping on it for the day. Leave him!’ He was given a safe corner. Later on, Fauji seemed to lose his sense of discipline. He turned cranky and at loggerheads with any sense of order.