Traveling in a bus commanded by a lady conductor

 

It’s a UP state roadways bus plying between Agra and Delhi. The conductor is a woman in black; short, stocky but pretty in face and impressive in limbs. She is extremely efficient and confident about her duties. The tone is bold. She needs it to deal with unruly passengers. She manages it with impressive effect, keeps eyes on each seat to be filled, ensures each passenger pays the fare, guides and gives instructions about the further journey once the passengers deboard the bus in the puzzling maze of the Delhi NCR.

The bus reaches the boarding point outside Agra to take the Expressway. There is a slight misunderstanding. The driver has allowed a young man to board thinking there is one seat vacant. The boyish man panics when he finds there is no seat available. He finds it a betrayal. His father is some official in the roadways. He feels he has been wronged terribly in not being offered a seat. He calls his father on phone. A real papa’s boy. When will you grow up, you crying sissy? He gives the phone to the conductor. The father talks to the lady conductor. She expresses her inability to get a seat vacant for his dear son. The father official gets offended, feels insulted that his very own son has to travel standing. Shameful and unpardonable. What is the use of his position then? He fires on all authoritative cylinders.

There are checking officials waiting at the next toll gates. The bus is raided. The boyish man looks with an authoritative leer. They surround the lady conductor as if she has been caught smuggling banned items. They bombard her with accusations—the rules that have been broken in the episode. One of them is enlisting the probable actions that will be taken against her. She defends her position confidently. But they are like hounds. The very same patriarchal mindset. The lady conductor starts crying. A woman passenger seems to be trying to mollify the raiding flying squad.

It’s taking a bad shape for the woman conductor. She needs more people on her side. Me and my brother get down. Both of us engage two staffers and straightway get into accusations that they have delayed the bus, that we paid the luxury bus far to catch our train (there was no scheduled train to catch), bla bla. My brother looks like a six-feet tall wing commander in military style cargos. Imitating him even I’m smartly clad today. They think that even we have connections to be so full of confidence in confronting them. They turn defensive. They ask us to board the bus as if the issue is settled.

When I feel they are no longer on the front foot, I give them my sermon on women empowerment: ‘She is a very efficient conductor, manages it really well. Far better than scores of male conductors I have seen. She is a working woman. Don’t harass her in the name of performing your duties!’ I speak loudly at the mustachioed man, the most rascally looking in the group. The boyish man is puzzled. The lady conductor is shedding tears. We raise a ruckus. The penalties are forgotten. They find it advisable to stop the matter from taking an uglier form. The bus starts again. After half an hour we see that she is her normal professional self again. It’s good to help someone in having a normal day.