Summer 2019 Travel Writing Prompt Contest Winner

In the Middle of Nowhere

By Kavitha Sharma*

It was a beautiful day, but quite foggy. Raveena woke up full of life when the clock struck 6 am. Every time she woke up in the morning, the first thought aroused in her mind was travelling in the congested bus.

She rubbed her eyelids and perceived the mist outside. The coconut trees looked like a Brobdingnagians. She wished to transfigure herself into one of those coconut trees standing aloof at the corner. While contemplating her fantasy, the loud alarm rebuked her.

When she got appointed in India for an internship in the Kocheri village, she was informed that she’s going to stay in a remote corner of India where people lacked education, and she’s to create awareness about the importance of education. Raveena was thrilled to know that she was going far away from the tedious city life.

She was very ardent that nothing would be able to impede her freedom here. She loathed the urban life. She spent almost 22 years in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and got entangled in the prejudice of her family members. After coming here to Kocheri, she enjoyed its serenity, the calm and composed streets and innocent villagers.

Every whippersnapper thinks that they can enjoy their life in urban areas. Raveena, on the contrary, yearned for calm and composed rural life.

She chose social work in order to work in villages and to get away from the hectic schedule she had been experiencing since her school days. India was one of her dream destinations. She had submitted lots of theories about the aesthetic Indian culture and made projects on the lives of village people in India. Her life in Malaysia was frenzied. She wanted to go and explore the serene and calm rural life. Fortunately, she got to know about Kocheri and felt very happy to do her internship there.  When she told her family that she desired to work in a village, that it was far away from Malaysia and that she desired to work in a village in India called Kocheri, they fiercely opposed and didn’t accept her decision. But Raveena was very determined to go there and live her fantasy, which she’s yearned for since her childhood.

She adored everything in this village except the travels. She had to travel for about 45 kilometers to reach the school. And the most egregious thing was getting crushed amidst the crowd. She was never used to travel in the bus. Her father arranged a separate cab for her to go to school and colleges. Other times she took taxis for personal visits to her relative and friends’ houses. It was all new for Raveena, when she travelled for the first time in the bus in India.

On the first day, the milkman told her that she had to get on the bus with the board 10D hanging on the top of it. If she missed the bus then she would have to wait for another 2 hours at the bus stop. Raveena swiftly got ready in the morning and saw a bus coming with a broken board hanging at the top. As soon as the bus reached the stop, the crowd rushed and pushed her away in the rush to get seats.

She managed to get on the bus after a brief struggle and sat beside an old lady who draped herself in plain crumpled cotton saree. She looked attractive with her sharp nose and unblemished complexion, with muddled wrinkles like the roads of Kocheri. Her hair had turned completely grey; she had tied it in a bun and adorned the bun with jasmine garland.

Raveena looked at the old lady’s hands clutching a basket tightly, and time after time she heard birds twittering inside coming the basket. She watched closely and found that the basket was full  of chicks colored with many shades.

“Yesterday I sold ten chicks. The market was very crowded and I managed to attract kids, but today is Monday. I won’t be able to get customers for five days,” she lamented to Raveena after she noticed Raveena watching the chicks anomalously.

Raveena smiled and turned aside. The bus almost contained more people than its capacity. The school boys were dangling in the steps holding the rusted seat edges. She expected the conductor to ask the people to get down at the next stop due to the heavy throngs dashing each other and standing uncomfortably inside. Instead, he allowed even  more people at the next stop to get inside by shouting loudly.

“Move inside, move inside, people are getting on,” he blared like a horn.

Raveena got exhausted after darting out of the bus. But unfortunately, she had to travel in the same bus after her work. Every day she met a huge crowd  with divergent disposition inside the 10D.

One day, a small school girl was sitting in front of her and writing hurriedly in her notebook. Her hands trembled when the crowd jolted and fell upon the corner of the seat where the girl collapsed and swayed every time the bus stopped.

Raveena assisted children whom she taught in the government aided school with homework. Sometimes she noticed their handwriting looked like a person writing in the shivering cold with hands trembling. She discerned that day that those handwritings were the unforeseen magic of 10D.

The common face she met daily was the stout stern middle aged man who never sits in the bus, even when the seats are unoccupied.

He stares at everyone with annoyance. One day Raveena dashed him when the crowd pushed her from behind. He gave her a cold look and turned his head angrily. She hadn’t encountered a glance like that even in the spine-chilling serial killer web series.

Raveena idolized the young ladies she ran across every day. The perfection of their oily plaits often fascinated her; even in the windy days they remained inflexible.

Raveena had never come across the fierce quarrels in the public places when she was in city. The women who got on the bus like a rebels in wars immediately start cussing and teaching the passengers rustic vulgar words when someone pushes them. No matter how crowded the bus is, they always expect a posh traverse. Whenever Raveena happened to stand near them she was very cautious not to disturb their peace.

Sporadically, she managed to get seats in 10D. Most of the times the bus would be crowded and she literally floated amidst the crowd. Once in a while she got corner seats, and discerns that travelling in bus… that too in a placid village is actually a heavenly feeling.

The green landscape embellished with black road in the middle enthralled her spirit. The small vendors across the roads struggled daily to attract the customers with attractive slogans written on the pitch black boards in white chalk; the shop changed according to the climate. In summer season the water melon vendors cried at the top of their voice to sell melons, and in winter season the coconut sellers replaced the melon vendors.

She’s thrilled to meet the new naïve personalities in 10D every day. They seemed transparent in expressing their temperament.

She’s never met a hypocrite or diplomatic person in Kocheri. Sometimes, she meets a rebel, sometime a socially awkward person, more often story spinning passengers. You can listen to the interesting stories when you sit near the middle aged women talking with their pals. Often the protagonist of the story is themselves and the antagonist is their daughter-in-law.

That morning, she perceived the old broken clock which again rebuked her. The time was 7:30 am. Raveena had to get ready within half an hour to reach the bus stop. The mist hadn’t cleared yet.

Raveena walked fast to reach the bus stop; with only a few minutes left for her to catch the bus, she almost ran like an athlete. When she reached the stop, the bus was already moving away. She sat exhausted. She’s missed 10D today and must wait for 2 hours to get another bus.

She saw the stern looking, stout man staring at her from the window, and he whispered something to the conductor. He blew his whistle to stop the bus.

The bus immediately ceased and waited for Raveena to get on. She cheerfully ran and got inside the bus and thanked the conductor. She knew that because of the stern, stout man the conductor blew the  whistle.

Raveena turned and smiled at him thankfully. He gave her his usual cold look and turned aside. She laughed inside her head and admired his coldness. She could hear the loud talk of women who happily laughed at their own stories.

She felt like at home in the 10D bus with the unique, lovable personalities in the middle of nowhere. She perceived the leaves in the dense trees outside the window, which rustled as if nodding to her thoughts and feeling her comfort in the congested bus.

 

---

Kavitha Sharma was born and brought  up in Vellore, India. She is pursuing her masters in English literature. She’s a blogger and researcher of colonialism in Indian writings.

Follow and connect with the writer on Instagram: @a_bookaholic_speaks_

*Voyage Scribe retains first publishing rights and concedes all other copyright, publishing and reprint rights to the writer.