Once upon a time in a bus

I have encountered this incident while travelling through my local bus in Mumbai. Please ping your feedbacks to

I am a bus traveler. I use it for daily commuting, college - home, to and fro. One such sunny afternoon on a week-day I took my regular route bus. I take the same bus every afternoon, the conductor now even recognizes me. Walking up to the front seats I chose a window seat for myself. Waiting to purchase a ticket, I pulled out a book from my bag, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, I have been trying to read this book since a while; highly recommended by one of my friends but somehow I never felt so connected to the content of the book. But today I had planned on reading it cover-to-cover! Jerking my chain of thoughts the driver abruptly pressed the brake on the next stop; no a little ahead of the stop.

A guy maybe in his mid-twenties was waving out to the driver from a little distance and running towards the bus. He had a huge bag in his hand which posed to be a hurdle in the else’s leaping steps. Getting in the bus he chose the first seat in the vicinity adjacent to the door. Removing a shabbily folded 10rs note from his pocket he told his destination to the conductor who returned him a ticket and the remaining change. I supposed he was travelling a small distance and I returned to my book. Due to the huge sack he was trying to adjust in his leg space he grabbed the attention of all passengers in the bus who wondered what resided in it. C'mon you have to stay aware. 
Rubber slippers, bell bottom pants with a shirt old and torn. He peeped in the mobile phone of his neighbor passenger which made that guy feel super uncomfortable. He stared at the phone with a smile. He actually smiled at everything around, he smiled at the ticket, the conductor, the co-passengers and even to the roof of the bus. Weird guy I thought and got back to my book.

I read a page and got distracted by his loud actions again. He kept moving his sack here and there making noises of steel boxes which it contained. With so much of traffic that afternoon it was taking longer than supposed; this annoying person made it worse. The bus stopped as the traffic signal had gone red. Wow. More to the delay I thought. But the signal made someone happy. Yes that guy smiled even at the red signal and started shouting to call out the kids on the signal who had been asking for food car to car. Why did I choose to sit here! I thought to myself; so unable to concentrate on my book. I pet named him Weirdo in my head.

It was lunch time and the kids were hungry. They couldn’t afford a meal so they tried asking for one. And this weirdo was calling them! Even if someone is willing to provide them money the kids won’t get because this guy wants to play with those kids.
Kids arrive and weirdo told something to them which I couldn’t decode much. I could just see the kid running to his mother, who returned with 3 big vessels. Everyone in the whole bus thought ‘Aaj toh pitega beta!’ as she stood right below weirdos’ window.

Weirdo started unwinding his sack with the passengers’ curious eyes on him. He removed a steel container. It was big and flat. Opening the lid he held out a bunch of Rotis and placed it in the vessel. In another vessel he gave her some Paneer Tikka and in the third he poured some dal. The signal turned green and the bus drove off. There was pin drop silence in the bus for the next 5 minutes. No one said a word. People were numb. On the next stop Mr. Weirdo had to get down. He turned around to see the whole bus smiling at him. Even I did. No one knew who he was and he definitely wasn’t rich. But he was wealthier than all of us. He didn’t have money but happiness to give. He would have been a waiter of a hotel and the food, a leftover to be disposed of. He gave it to the have-nots, those who couldn’t afford a meal a day, those who will have nothing in return but blessings for him.

This was weirdo, who without any expectation of appreciation did what he could to help others. He never knew those people. They were complete strangers to him. They are complete strangers to him even today, but they know weirdo, they know weirdo as a good man with a helpful heart. They respect weirdo and bless him for his gesture. Even though they will never meet weirdo all their life; they will remember him and so shall we, his bus co-passengers.

That day I learned a life lesson. Not everything in life comes beautiful and long lasting. Not everyone is going to stay forever in your life. Thank them for what they have given you, let them go and keep moving. Greater things are yet to come.
Everything happens in life for a reason. Mr. Weirdo who might have not read a page from ‘The 7 Habits of Effective People’, he didn’t even know a single habit but taught me more than a bit.
A lesson to help selflessly. A lesson not to expect anything in return. A lesson to give it away when someone needs it.

I adore you Mr. Weirdo and I know somewhere someone will help you when needed because Karma is not always a b***h! Kindness is kinder when showed in kind but cash.

- Shivani Shankar

Author's Note

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