Why I prefer Public Transport

Cartoon from Walrustoons. Please visit http://iamwalrus.blogspot.in/ for more fun cartoons

I do miss having a car at times. Especially when I go shopping or when I want to visit a place outside the city on a whim. Sometimes it is a struggle to get up, change multiple modes of transport to get to a place. And when it is hot or smoky I give up. But here is the thing—everytime I sit in a car, I wince at the homogeneity of culture that it represents--a moving ghetto winding its way through the urban space. And I long to get out.


I do prefer the public transport, the share auto more specifically. Even though one has to strain to stay in place, hope your clothing won’t tear from the jagged edges. And sometimes when you notice a gaping hole in the floor of the auto, anxiety sets in and you wonder if you are going to reach home in one piece.

Even then I prefer the public transport, the share auto specially. This rickety-rackety vehicle pushes boundaries, forces you to be with varied people. Early morning, in Hyderabad, I may share an auto with fruitsellers from Kothapet fruit market or in Chennai, I may share it with flower sellers from Koyambedu market. Sometimes I may have a fish vendor on one side and a government employee on the other, sometimes a beggar or mason or domestic help or a professor or an elegant lady in a crisp cotton sari or a woman with many children in tow, including one who sits on my lap. I have to sit scrunched up amongst them, breathing the smells, listening to their talk, swaying with them as the auto swerves dangerously to avoid something on the road. And sometimes there is this occasional guy who has given his car for servicing and sits in the auto uncomfortably, holding a roof-rod, looking outside very pointedly as if to tell all of us that he doesn’t belong here.

I have realized I belong here—in this land of a people, amidst the smells and chatter and the incongruent music, with sparkly sequins and browned skins interjected by elegant napes and easy laughter, spiced sometimes with cuss words or a spilt biryani, of hopes and tiredness, of adventure and sometimes a reluctant acceptance, of crossing class and caste at least for the moment.

Something eases off—I become less me.

[Some anecdotes from my experiences travelling in share auto here]