I’ve a compulsive habit of observing and analysing people, mostly the ones I get to see often. The best place to do this, the ideal place rather, is on a bus. I take enough pride in saying that most of my observations on my fellow travellers are very close to being accurate. Yet, certain people have surprised me in unexpected ways occasionally. One such person is a college girl who travels everyday in my bus. The first time I saw her, the words that came to my mind were ‘small, timid, frail, quiet, shy, sweet...’ I then wondered how she managed being a medical student. She looked like she’d swoon over a paper cut. The big fat medical books that she carried barely let her climb the steps of the bus. Whenever she sat beside me I had enough space on the seat to keep my bag beside me. Well, you get the picture. One fine morning in the bus she surprised me good. I was awed. My manner of looking at her with kind pitiful eyes changed to that with respectful admiration-filled ones. She was carrying an umbrella along with the usual stack of bulky medical text books. Her journey from the bus entrance till the seat next to me was one filled with precarious and unsure footsteps. She flopped down beside me and sighed and I hoped my sigh of relief wasn’t very audible. I resumed minding my own business of staring out the window and somewhere along the way she got busy with her cell phone. I realised it when she started speaking to someone over it. I had no problem with not eavesdropping since she spoke in a soft voice, thus tipping my observations of her towards accurate.
There is another person who also travels by the same bus everyday. Many words come to my mind when I look at him too of which the politest are self conceited perverted midget. I’ve refrained myself from observing him since he himself has the habit of looking around curiously, especially at the female faction. He could perceive my observation of him as a sign of reciprocation that could further lead to wrong (involuntary shudders inducing) conclusions. I’ve not heard his voice either since he has not thankfully come close enough for me to hear it. That morning I looked in the general direction of the bus entrance long enough to know he’d got in. Then I went back to my looking-out-the-window-but-not-actually-seeing-anything routine. The girl next to me talked away on the phone softly. There came a bus stop where there’s a considerably more influx of passengers compared to other stops. So the bus stops there for a few minutes. It was the midget’s stop to get down. I guess he dozed off; I’m not sure and I didn’t care. He was sitting somewhere behind us. Anyway, that day he didn’t realise he had to get down until the bus started to move again. When it did he scrambled hurriedly towards the front entrance. He could have taken the back one but unfortunately (for him) he didn’t. The girl still talked away, oblivious. In a hurry to get to the entrance he ignored the poles that people use to keep them from falling in a moving bus. Seeing him run, the bus conductor realised that he meant to get down. He whistled, the driver hit the brakes, the bus lurched slightly. Now, I can’t say if it was an accident or if the midget was perverse opportunist extraordinaire. On his way to the front entrance he stepped to his right where the ladies’ seat were, scrambled onwards and brushed against the side of the girl next to me. What happened after that keeps playing in my mind in ultra slow motion over and over again. I’m sure it didn’t even last for a second. After brushing against her the midget kept moving ahead aided by the momentum and partly due to the inertia caused by the sudden braking of the bus (er... pardon the technicality). The girl, however, until then talking in barely over a whisper, whipped up her umbrella in her left hand and swung it hard against the front of the midget who’d committed the atrocity of brushing against her. Whack! Her reflexes were amazing! The time between the contact of his arm to her side and the resounding whack was less than a millisecond. The phone was still in her right hand. I’d seen the guy come up from behind from the corner of my eye. By the time I’d reacted and turned my head fully to my left, the brushing, the whipping up of umbrella and the swinging was already over. My head turned towards the scene just in time to see the full fledged whack! I was stunned. And I wasn’t the only one. Many other people in the bus witnessed the incredible incident that had lasted for one whole second. The midget was swung sideways by the force but the momentum kept him moving towards the entrance. He stumbled once over his own foot, but maintained his balance and almost flew out of the entrance. It looked like he was fleeing for an instant. And in that instant I thought that was the wisest thing he’d ever done. Stick around for one more second and you’ll get another whack, I thought. Serves him right! I was elated, pumped with girl-power confidence. I wanted to thump the girl on her back and say “you go, girl!” Frail, timid, shy my ass! More like: calm until you mess with me, then, I’m Xena and I’ll make you regret. Still grinning I turned to look at my new hero (or heroine)...
Only to see her talking on the phone in that soft voice again, the umbrella back on her lap, smiling faintly as if nothing at all had happened. My grin was gone, wiped away. I looked at her for a second or two. Then I turned away and looked out the window, a faint smile spreading on my own face.
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