Crowded Buses: India's Real Battleground

I meant to write about the wedding I went to this last weekend, but ended up writing more about the bus ride there, which spawned this blog entry. I promise an entry on the wedding will follow soon enough.

As we get near to bus stops women try and reposition themselves for an easier and quicker exit. It feels like when you try and put on that old pair of jeans that you know is just a little too tight for you. You inhale deeply and hold it, button, and then exhale and let the fat muffin over the top of your pants. First the inhale—women squeeze themselves into seemingly impossible walls of people. As I stand next to the seats my hip bones get pressed up against the seat as the women force their bodies pass me towards the door or further into the bus to their “spots.” It’s temporary pain as we collectively inhale, but once the bus starts up again we’ve all seemed to find more comfortable ways to bulge at the seams of the bus. Like the tight pair of jeans—it’s never completely comfortable, but it's livable.

Crowded buses are prime time for tempers to flare. With 3 women crammed in the spot near any one seat, when a woman stands to exit the tin can the battle for the empty seat begins. The oldest women are the dirtiest fighters—using elbows, bags, looks that could kill, and loud Tamil as weapons against you. You thought WWII was bad, you should see these women. The white haired ladies may look old, frail, and remind you a little of your sweet grandma at home, but baby all pretenses are off in a crowded bus.

Megan one time had a woman choke her with her own scarf, elbow her in the gut, and then use the strong arm block to claim the seat in front of them both. Creative tactics woman I have to give you that. I always get the sly ones who slip into my seat while my attention is focused on how to shift my weight and bag to get into the seated position while the bus is coming to a complete halt. Sneaky.

Now the buses sound like complete amoral ground, but every new student soon realizes that all is fair in bus wars, except one thing—pregnant women and women with infants always get a seat, so someone better cough it up before the old women start enforcing the rule.

With long hot days in the city and the reality of riding the whole hour home to Chavadi standing settling I sometimes find a bit of fight in me. But I’m not equipped enough for these battles. In general I wish I spoke a little Tamil, but when those women get to yelling at each other over bus seats the desire to know Tamil burns in me. At least I think the fight is over the seats, it could be an ongoing family feud over land—I’d believe it the women fight with enough passion.

I must say while some women see our white skin as easy targets for open seat stealing, others act as the country’s ambassadors. The ambassadors always try to ensure we get seats while the conniving seat thieves go in for the easy kill. I enjoy talking with the ambassadors and have varied reactions to the thieves. Sometimes I get outraged, other times aggressive, and in rare moments I react with a Christian spirit of “you probably need it more than I do.” Maybe all these bus rides are just tests of character. I wonder if I'll ever pass.