After attending my cousin’s marriage, I was returning back from Pudukkottai, in KSRTC Rajahamsa bus service. As usual the bus waited to fill the empty seats and started later than the actual departure time. I slept as soon as the bus started, due to the vibrating noise and the rocking. It rocked more than usual as most part of the road was eroded due to the monsoonal lash, which hit parts of southern Tamilnadu, a few months back. I realized we had reached Tiruchirapalli bus station, when the break in the monotonicity awoke me. The conductor was busy checking the e-tickets and the id proof, while the driver was busy gossiping with the only other Kannada speakers around – the driver and conductor of other KSRTC Airavat heading towards the same city. Most of my co-passengers seemed to have, what I call - IT traits. These are traits that can be found in a person, due to the influence of information technology sector, trying to impose western lifestyle on to us. Some of these are easily identifiable like the attire or laptop backpacks with well-known company names, while some trait requires little more observation like their discussion topic revolving around some technical jargon, which they themselves might not know in detail. While I was looking around the happenings, the guy opposite my seat, whose adjacent seat was empty, got a call. From the discussion I understood that it was a call from the guy who had been sitting next to him. He should have gone out for a quick dinner and had called to check whether he has enough time still to return back. As the answer was in affirmative, he took some more time to return back. But within that the conductor counted the number of passengers, inquired for this missing guy and asked the other guy to call him. The bus had to wait for a while for this ‘quick dinner’ guy to come back with a smile to cover up his guilty consciousness.
After commenting something in Kannada, when the driver started the bus, it gave a cold response. After a few futile tries, the conductor got down, followed by 2 other guys in the front seat. As a usual Indian response, it was decided to push the bus and engage it in 2nd gear. I had seen it work quite a few times in the past. So, instead of being a dead weight inside the bus, I decided to help in pushing the bus. We were 5 guys pushing our heart out with another 20 people sitting inside the bus, with all the congestion and limitations of a bus station. After a couple of futile tries, pushing front and back, the driver of the nearby KSRTC bus joined us in pushing and with some suggestions. In the meanwhile, few people around the place who were not destined to travel with us also joined in pushing the bus. As it was getting hard to push, one of those guys who joined later told the conductor to ask the passengers to get down. After the conductor requested, 2 guys got down and joined me on either side to push. One of them was cursing all the time for such a situation. By now, lot of our energy was drained and thoughts of finding seats in other buses started growing. The Airavat driver now took the driver seat with a suggestion from a guy around there that instead of 2nd gear, try with 3rd gear. Both these changes worked. With a sigh of relief we got in the bus. I noticed a – status quo inside the bus. I was wondering whether I had come out of a dream, as I found the ‘quick dinner’ guy and his neighbor’s discussion went on uninterruptedly, my neighbor, as like others was unmoved by this hassle. When I confirmed I was not out of a dream, I was pushed to think of these people as self-helpless guys. Had the bus not started, they would have to find other means of reaching the destination, which were cumbersome on a wedding date and a Sunday. Even if they did not help in pushing, I expected them to get down reducing our efforts in pushing. Unlike the jargon used by these 'IT trait" guys, reducing weight would reduce the efforts to push is a common sense. Due to previous experiences of such bus breakdowns, I am put to think whether it is because of the class of the crowd in this particular bus. Do these ‘IT trait guys’ think it affects their dignity? What use of such people to the society who can’t help themselves? A decade back, I used to hear about ‘brain-drain’ very frequently, when intellectuals grown up in India, used their intellect abroad. Now seeing such incident, makes me feel that it’s “social-instinct-drain” or “social-sense-drain” even being within the country.
Again, when the monotonicity was broken, I found that the bus was stopped for a tea break at Salem. That’s when I realized these guys are not as self-helpless as I thought. Most of them got down to help themselves attend the nature's call and pee in front of the compounds and fences, around there, which would scent those shops and residences when they open their doors and windows the next morning.
P.S:
I took this opportunity to comment on the people with ‘IT traits’, as I was one among the few who pushed the bus. I might also be one of those ‘IT trait guys’ for someone else who watches me respond to a different situation. I don’t want to seclude myself from this crowd. I am one among them, responding to very few insignificant things in a sensible way. Moreover these responses of mine has not brought any social impact or at the least individual improvement for some one. So, sadly, I am also in the same “drain”.
I could not phrase better word than “social-instinct-drain” or “social-sense-drain”. Please help me with a better one if you have.
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