Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 P I L G R I M S 06by side in the gloom some way off from the terminal. As we got close,we could tell which was going first by the two passengers and two crewsitting inside in the darkness. Looking closely into the others, as wepassed, I could see they too had crews, but huddled asleep under blankets.We clambered aboard; inside there were two rows of simple metalseats with the minimum of padding between red plastic covers and thehardness of their bases, there was no door for the passenger doorway,half the cover for the oily engine was missing, and there was no glass inthe side windows.The bus must have been waiting for our plane because, once we andthree others had boarded, the engine was coaxed into shuddering life, afew dim internal lights came on, and we pulled out for New Delhi. As werattled along the nearly empty road, the conductor made his way downthe aisle. Presumably an ex-serviceman, he now wore a simple uniformof khaki shirt and pyjama bottoms, flip-flops, and an old scarf wrappedround his head. He sold us two tickets printed crudely on thick paper.The excitement of arriving and the nostalgia of being back in Indiamade everything seem romantic. We shuddered along looking out on acountry neither of us had seen for fifteen years; the empty streets bathedin the light of the moon giving our passage an extra sense of magic.Every so often the bus would shudder to a stop in the middle of nowhereto let strange characters get on or off: a fat man struggling down thesteps with an impossible bundle and boxes tied up in string, or an oldlady arising out of the shadows with a shopping bag. Each time a cry of“Chalo” (Let’s go) from the conductor would set the bus off again likea spooked cow. Eventually it was our turn. The bus stopped and the conductorcried out, “Connaught Circus.” We clambered down with ourbags to the pavement and with another “Chalo” it was our turn to bestrange characters exiting into the night.7