The sleek KSRTC bus cut through the night along winding roads with rubber trees on either side and a full moon above. The driver manoeuvred the large vehicle effortlessly while talking to the bus conductor who sat nearby.
“There’s somebody up ahead,” the bus conductor said and pointed at the road, illuminated by the bright yellow headlights of the bus.
“I might be old, Raju, but I can still see,” Shibu, the driver, chuckled and waved a hand at his companion. Shibu eased the brake pedal down with his bare foot. The few passengers sitting behind the driver and conductor leaned gently forward as the bus came to a slow halt. An old man climbed onto the bus, his frail hands gripping the sparkling metal guide rails. Raju rang the bus bell using the string overhead and Shibu moved the bus forward.
The old man could have sat in any one of the empty seats on the bus, but he decided to sit next to another old man.
“I have a long way to go,” the old man said with a smile on his face. “Could use some company.”
“Of course,” the other old man said, slightly startled. “Of course.”
The two old men continued to talk about many things. They started with the weather.
“It might rain tomorrow,” said one. The other agreed.
Then they moved on to politics, and then about their families.
“My grandson…Mathew…good kid…” the old man paused and coughed. “He’s getting married next week.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!”
They spoke like this until one of the old men got off the bus. The other bid his travel companion goodbye and sat in silence for the remainder of his journey. He also got off a few stops later.
And the bus continued forward.
***
The next night it rained.
The bus, with its red and yellow paint job, moved swiftly along the same route.
Little Manu was sitting on the back seat, which ran along the entire length of the bus. He liked sitting at the back; every time the bus crossed a speed bump, he would bounce off the seat and land back on the springy cushion. He would do this with his friends often, and every time they got thrown upwards, they would all have a good laugh. Well, that was until the bus conductor came and scolded them. But tonight it was okay—the conductor was sitting up front talking to the driver, and the boy was alone without any of his friends to create a big enough ruckus.
As he sat there, staring out at the dark rubber trees flying past, he felt the bus slow down. His body waited for the speed bump but was disappointed when the bus stopped.
A flash of lightning lit up the distance.
An old man stepped in. He had no umbrella, but he was not drenched.
The conductor rang the bus bell. The bus rolled forward.
Thunder rumbled.
Little Manu watched the old man sit next to another man, who was also old, judging by the grey hair that popped up from the back of the seat. The old man said something and laughed as he sat, and the other man said something in return. Little Manu wondered what the joke was but forgot all about it by the time the next speed bump came along.
The boy sat for a while longer, got up when the bus neared his stop, and got out once it stopped. His house was just a minute’s walk from there.
***
It rained the next night also.
The bus was back on its routine journey.
Shankar sat next to his wife, one of his arms gently wrapped around her shoulders. She rested on her husband and absent-mindedly stared at the grey heads of two men deep in conversation, a few seats in front of her. Her thoughts were interrupted by her husband’s soothing voice.
“Should we tell them now or after a few days?”
“Let’s wait, plan it, and surprise them!”
“Just as I thought,” Shankar laughed.
The bus moved over a speed bump, and a boy chuckled somewhere in the back. The couple looked at each other and smiled.
Shankar continued to hold on to his wife until their stop, while his wife’s hands rested on her lap, close to her belly.
***
During the day, the bus stood among a pile of rubbish in a bus depot near Kottayam, covered with plants and dirt. Its flat tyres lay sunk in soil and grass. Its roof was crumbled, and its windows all shattered. Creeper vines had crept inside and covered many of the broken seats. The bus had lost whatever colour it once had to years of sun and rain. It was now grey and rusted.
The people who walked past paid no attention to the bus, unaware of the story that it held. But a few still knew. These few remembered what happened to the bus and the poor souls that travelled within it, many years back, in the rains of 2009.
A person standing by the side of a road that the bus ran on many years back, at the right time after dusk, would feel a strong gust of wind whoosh past her and think nothing of it.
***
The old man never saw his grandson’s wedding.
The little boy never reached home to his mother.
The couple’s surprise never happened.
Many stories were left incomplete that day. But every night, the old, forgotten bus refused to let its passengers’ journeys end.
