THE bus came to an abrupt halt after the brakes were applied without any warning. Not that this was anything new or illegal. If you are travelling in a public bus on the roads of Kathmandu, then you are bound to get some abrupt jolts from all directions every once in a while. That sudden frontward jolt brought all the passengers back from the dreamland they had been happily residing in for the last half an hour.
The silence of the bus (the snoring sounds of some sleeping passengers excluded) was then overshadowed by lazy mumbles. Someone yawned, a guy swore, some lady at the back row cursed the driver for that unannounced jolt. Inertia of motion, I thought. The bus-driver honked his favourite horns. And without even looking outside the window, I knew that we were now stuck in a traffic- jam. The blistering, honking and screeching street noises were only analogous to the rows and rows of vehicles that thrust against each other for a tiny space to crawl in.
The silence of the bus (the snoring sounds of some sleeping passengers excluded) was then overshadowed by lazy mumbles. Someone yawned, a guy swore, some lady at the back row cursed the driver for that unannounced jolt. Inertia of motion, I thought. The bus-driver honked his favourite horns. And without even looking outside the window, I knew that we were now stuck in a traffic- jam. The blistering, honking and screeching street noises were only analogous to the rows and rows of vehicles that thrust against each other for a tiny space to crawl in.
“Congestion isn’t new,” said the old woman sitting beside me. I looked at her side, looked at her face that clearly showed the years and decades she had been through and survived. I remembered all those anti-ageing and anti-wrinkles creams. Maybe she had never used one, I thought, or never considered it necessary. Besides, she had lived in a time when anti-ageing was as alien a word as anti-congestion was now for us; a time when clean air was not new, when getting old was not new. Congestion isn’t new, she had said. Maybe she was open to changes, physical or otherwise, I concluded.
“A chakka-jam has been announced,” the busconductor said as he entered the bus after his thorough inspection of the road. We were used to that, announcements without any pre-announcements. The bus-conductor, a teenaged boy, took his mobile out and started typing. “Posting my Facebook status,” he announced, “Chakka-jam at Sundhara Chowk,” he said slowly as he moved his fingers in a familiar way of movements. At least now people will get pre-informed, I thought, courtesy of that announcement. “Some parties want some rules to be addressed, and thus the chakka-jam,” the boy said suddenly in a reporter sort of way. He even had a reporter’s repertoire; curious and keen eyes, fingers in a swift motion as if in a hurry to update everything. He was wearing a purple-coloured T-shirt. Purple, that seemed to be the colour of the season. There was a building painted purple downtown; purple display boards were scattered all around the city that echœd the name of a popular broadband connection; and it was this colour purple that brought an amplitude in information technology that had made updating FB-status from anywhere by anyone more plausible, a change people were more at ease with and happier about.
“Getting a mobile these days isn’t new,” the old woman put in. She must have adapted well to all kinds of changes. But I was not thinking about the adaptation skills she had amassed over the years. I was thinking of ways I was going to use to reach home in the next thirty minutes. My calculation of reaching home by bus within thirty minutes had already failed. So my mind swiftly set out another calculation. The shortest distance, the less-trafficked lanes, my walking speed; all of them equalled to twenty minutes. I looked outside the window. The sun was more furious that day and the cool breeze seemed to have taken a rest. So I added an extra five minutes. Twenty-five minutes, I sighed. I disliked the notion of getting away from the comfort of the bus. Changes, I’m not open to changes, I discovered. “We never had these chakka-jams in our days.”
The old woman shifted my thoughts from that new discovery. “And now chakka-jam is like their everyday rght,” she continued. “Only if this action of theirs could bring about some reaction.” Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, my science teacher’s words rung in my ears like a distant rumble of thunder. We’re going to have to walk now, I mused. I did not know how equal or opposite it was, but it sure was a reaction. “We’re going to have to walk now,” the old woman said. “It dœs you good, don’t you think?” She saw my startled look. “Walking, I mean.” I had never been fond of walking, courtesy of all those two and four-wheelers. I wondered how many miles she had walked, the exact distance she had covered by foot. I could calculate that, if I knew the time-frame and her walking speed. “I’ve walked many a road; walked the trails, the fields and the alleys,” the old woman looked sombre. Was she a mind-reader? Her eyes seemed distant, gazing at some vacant space as if she were watching some video clippings from her past, one clipping after another. “Oh how I had walked,” she went on, her eyes still distant. “Things have changed ever since.” She then looked at me, those creases of her face so clear and evident that I could almost count the lines. Why did I have to count everything? “I’m old,” her eyes smiled. Were my thoughts that transparent? “As I said, things change. We get old, colours fade, leaves fall, roads get jammed.” She looked outside the window. I followed her gaze and my eyes got fixed on a haze of purple colour. For a moment, I thought that the glass was tinted with purple. But it was not the glass; it was the purple canopy of the flowering trees that always created a delightful covering on and above the roads of Kathmandu every summer.
Eight, I counted eight trees standing by the road in their purple grandeur. “I love spring, and jacarandas,” the old woman said with a nod toward the purple haze. “Makes you feel the road is new.” Funny, not until that moment had I known the name of those flowering trees. Jacaranda—I loved the sound of it. She shifted sideways and slid the window open. A whoosh of wind peeped in and lifted my hair. What happened to the resting breeze, I thought; the ever-so-changing weather. Outside, a group of people were sitting beneath the jacarandas debating furiously on the rules which they thought needed to be addressed or overruled; some were talking on their mobile phones; others were tapping their fingers on their mobile-screens, updating their facebook-posts, I assumed, making some pre-announcements. The road seemed to be carpeted with purple strings of flowers; interrupted only by the vertical posts that carried purple display boards. Purple—the colour this season. I gazed around. A gentle spring breeze followed by the purple rain did give a new outlook to the roads, even the jammed and crammed ones. But this new look will soon change, I knew. Seasons change, flowers wither, purple changes to yellow, roads get widened, rules get addressed, pre-announcements are made; things change, the old woman’s words echœd in my head. “Let’s get off the bus now. It’s not taking us anywhere.”
The old woman gathered her bag as she began to stand up. “Let’s walk home.” She stood up and looked down at me. “You don’t talk much, only listen.” Words elude me, I thought aloud, hoping that she would hear my thoughts. I can only see and hear, I wanted to tell her, just like the jacarandas. I only smiled. She smiled back and started walking toward the exit door. I noticed a limp in her movement. Old age, I sighed, consequential reaction of the journeys she had travelled and the purple carpets she had walked on. I then added up another ten minutes to my calculation. Thirtyfive minutes, I sighed again, and walked behind her. I hoped she would tell me about the jacarandas, her limp and all those changes she had weathered as soon as we would start walking together. I would drift slowly with her and listen, like the purple haze.
By: Barsha Chitrakar