I’m very sure that most of us have, at some point or the other, travelled using the Indian public transport system. There just cannot be anyone who hasn’t, in my opinion. Growing up, I’m pretty sure all of us have used either the bus or travelled by the most popular transport system in India – its trains! And I’m sure all of you (especially teenagers and young adults) who are reading this article will agree with me that seeing the various challenges and perils each mode of public transport thrown at us (how can we forget taxis and auto-rickshaws?), those formed the catalyst for our desire to have our own bike, scooter, or at least our very own cycle! For such is the plight of people who travel regularly using public modes of transport, I shudder when I just think of it – being among this special class of people myself!

Yes, I’m a twenty-three year old guy in India, and I don’t have my own vehicle (for various reasons, let’s not go there). Therefore, I have no choice but to use the various modes of transport that I have access to, right? Yes. So that’s how, I have become, like many of my fellow brothers and sisters, a seasoned traveller of the Indian bus. And now, I’m present to you, dear reader, a run – down of the everyday challenges that I, alongside thousands of others, face while travelling on the bus! This one is for all my fellow bus – travellers who are in the same plight as I am. So, here goes:

10. Really loud honking:

This is something that really gets on my nerves (and I’m sure on the nerves of all my fellow passengers), but the truth is that I’ve had my ear – drums shattered by the loving bus driver so many times, that either my ears have grown used to it, or I can hear significantly lesser than before. I’m serious – this is what hearing the loudest honks every thirty seconds does to you. I understand that some of you might think that it could be warranted, he is the bus driver after all, but stand in a bus and hear the shrillest of honking for no apparent reason (it starts right from the bus terminal, even before the bus has started moving!), and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I can only wonder how the girls and women who sit at the front of the bus even tolerate all the loudness, since they have to bear the brunt of the callous bus driver the hardest. And you know what a typical honk in the bus sounds like? A cross between a hundred violins out of tune and a shrieking aunt – that’s what. Very pleasant, no?

9. The bus stops every five minutes:

Yes, it does. And it’s extremely annoying, let me tell you! You might be wondering how I could have a problem with this one – that’s the point of travelling by bus, you say, to get down at your assigned stop! Yes, but do you have any inkling of what goes through the mind of someone whose bus – stop is five kilometres away and who’s already running late for work? All of us in the bus want to reach our destinations as quickly as possible, but now we have accepted the fact that the bus will screech to a halt every five minutes. Then, people will get down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean extra space to stand on. More often than not, the ratio of people getting off to the people getting on the bus is tremendously skewed. So now, not only do we have to make peace with getting late, we are even more cramped. What joy!

8. Surprise ticket inspections:

Every now and then, while you’re travelling by bus, an officer from the State Road Transport Corporation will appear from nowhere (I mean just alight randomly from any stop) and start asking everybody on the bus to show them their tickets. This exercise is done unfailingly, and no matter how cramped or crowded the bus is, these officers manage to somehow squeeze out tickets from everyone present. Now, what happens if you just got on the bus at the previous stop, and your bus conductor still hasn’t navigated his way through the crowd to get to where you are? You don’t have a ticket, and that makes you vulnerable to pay a fine of rupees two hundred all the same (yes, for absolutely no fault of yours)! Can you imagine the injustice of having to pay a fine ten times the cost of your ticket, for no fault of your own? If your conductor comes to your rescue, saying that he didn’t reach you yet, then you’re good. But he doesn’t (and that’s 90% of the time), then you’re two hundred rupees poorer and a whole lot more resentful.

7. You’re prone to losing things on the bus:

Yes, you are, and believe me, I am not making this up. Just think about it – more than ninety percent of the time, most of us end up standing, for lack of seats on the bus. Then, as the bus progresses on the journey, more and more passengers fill the bus, making it more cramped and claustrophobic. So here I am, trying to hold onto my bag and my ticket (read the previous point) with one hand and hold the railing with another, while simultaneously trying to maintain my balance, squashed between people on either side of me. This is a perfect opportunity for a seasoned pickpocketer to pry my wallet out of my back pocket, or sometimes, even my keys from my side pocket (anything can happen)! I’ve lost my wallet two times like this – I got on the bus with them, but they weren’t with me when I got off! Since then, only the bus fare is in my pocket, with my phone and everything else inside my bag. You’ve got to be careful even on the bus, bro!

6. The sheer crowd on the bus:

I’m telling you, don’t take this particular point lightly. If you travel by bus regularly, you might be all the more aware of what I’m saying, especially those travellers whose who get on their respective buses at the last stop. Why? Because the bus starts its regular routine of picking up passengers from the first stop on its route, and there are about ten of them. That means the poor passengers who get on at the last or second last bus – stop are greeted every time to a bus so full of passengers that the passengers standing at the door of the bus (already about twenty) look in imminent danger of falling on the road. If that’s the case just at the door, you can probably imagine how crowded and chock-full the bus would be inside. So, unless you want to we squashed from all sides and hang on for dear life (the fact that you have to stand for the entire journey is a given!), you wait for the next bus. With no luck.

5. Weird people, and weirder smells:

By now you must have understood that for most of the time, given the huge crowds that buses have been known to attract, almost all of us end up standing for the entire journey. And that can be so uncomfortable, it’s sometimes nauseating. Think about it – as I mentioned earlier, we get squashed because there are people pressing on to us from all sides. Now, in such a situation, imagine if someone can’t help but pass wind. Disgusting, right? Well, not really, because he can get away with it, seeing that there’s a huge crowd in the bus. And that’s only the start of what we have to put up with on a daily basis. The stench of sweat, vegetables, and goodness-knows what else is actually quite commonplace on the bus!

4. There’s a stampede to get in:

I’m sure all my friends that don’t travel by the bus know about this, and when you think about it, this might well be the reason they don’t. The very sight of the crowd at our platform at the bus terminal is enough to make us weak with worry – because the moment a bus arrives all of them go berserk and start crowding the entrance, hoping to get a seat. All my cunning fellow passengers cleverly dump in bags, water bottles, and bundles of clothing at random at seats through the open windows – their ‘reservation system’ if you please! And after all the struggle, you have to anyways end up standing. So why bother, right?

3. There’s a stampede to get out:

Having read the previous point, this comment is self – explanatory. I have no idea why, but especially when the bus reaches the terminal (I mean the final stop), everybody is in this mad rush to get off. In all of this, people trip over, things fall over, and what not! I have lost my spectacles under the bus because of this, and you know what’s worse, that nobody gives a damn!

2. You don’t get change for your ticket:

Our bus conductors are an unruly lot, I tell you. As they approach us to issue tickets, you can clearly hear their pockets and bag jingle with the sound of so many coins. But suppose my ticket is fifteen rupees and I give him a twenty – rupee note? Instead of surely getting a five-rupee coin back (which I’m pretty sure he has), all I get is an irritated question (You don’t have five rupees change?) and the number five scrawled at the back of my ticket. That supposedly means that I’m getting five rupees back when my stop comes, but know. This bus conductor does the same thing with almost every passenger, that at the end of the journey, he tells me to give two rupees to another woman and take my five rupees (that he is supposed to give me) from a man I only saw on the bus. Trust me, this is the most irritating thing. Ever.

1. Sexual assault:

To all the women out there, I cannot imagine at all what all of you must surely go through every day, in some form or the other. All of us just want a peaceful journey to our destination, but as some kind of twisted bonus, our lady passengers have to put up with lecherous men who shamelessly ogle, light ‘brushes’ of stranger hands across legs / thighs / hips (and what not), and sometimes, even in a crowded bus full of people, some women have to suffer silently as a shameless man, from behind, gropes her at various places, while the lady passenger can do nothing but suffer in horrified shame. I just cannot believe how we went from taking over their seats to this!