Picture this incident – The driver of a PMPML bus that was quite vacant, shut both the doors of the bus at an overcrowded Sanghvi Fata bus stop, so that people couldn’t board it. A boy, 15-16 years old, protested and asked for the door to be opened. The conductor did not listen, and barked that there was another empty bus behind. As we had already guessed, there was none! As this bus tried to make way through the heavy traffic, 4-5 ppl including the boy, again caught up with it, and began yelling that they had been waiting for over an hour there, and they must be let in. The driver and conductor didn’t budge…so the boy stood in front of the bus and blocked its way….Quite some traffic was accumulating behind us, so I thought the boys would be let in..To my horror, the conductor and driver not just kept the doors of the bus shut, but threatened the boy that they would run him over, if he didn’t make way for the bus. This screaming, yelling and abusing went on for a long time…vehicles kept honking behind us and a decision had to be taken by somebody..Finally the boy, frustrated as he was, picked up a large stone fallen on the road..That, made the driver change his mind, and he opened the doors of the bus. Once the boys entered the bus, there another round of abuse. Th boy tried to talk rationally, explaining that had the bus been full, he would never have demanded to board it…but since he was being continually abused, he started abusing back…the whole scene turned very ugly, and ended only when the boy in question alighted the bus at his stop, albeit not without some ugly verbal exchange with the driver.
In the meanwhile, like all other passengers in the bus, I sat silently watching the whole episode, agreeing with the boy from within, yet saying nothing to the driver and conductor, who were clearly in the wrong!!
When the driver didn’t open the doors, I could have protested; when he threatened to run the boy over, I could have protested;..but no, I sat like a statue, just like typical Indian public, who I keep criticising for such attitude of theirs!!
I felt ashamed of myself today……
Writer's Block! 
Chill U will get another chance and this time stand up and fight for the injustice. I can say this because i have done it and my conscience is clear but that does not mean i am great and u r not.
We join hands and we become responsible and powerful
Take care
Nitin
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Hi Amruta, I like to read your blogs and I think your writing is fantastic though I haven’t read all your blogs but whichever I have read are superb.
Similar incident like this has happened with me also and I had a same feeling of not helping that individual kept bothering me the entire day.
But after sometime I felt that its not that we didn’t wanted to help that guy but it was our state of mind which didn’t allow us to get involve in the situation or because we didn’t wanted to mess up with our routine, we knew that guy was right and we could have done something but in our mind there were so many ifs and buts arguing that we fail to take any decision.
But the fact that you have realized that you could have done something thats big enough coz I am so sure there would be hardly any people in the bus who would have realized this point. They might have forgotten the incident and right now would be busy in their daily chores.
I am so very sure whenever this kind of incident happens again, you will be the first one to get into it and solve the issue. Trust me on that.
Finally I would like to say, please don’t be ashamed of your self and see it as in near future something requires more help of yours so this incident was just to make you realize that you are capable of standing for the right individual and fight for the justice.
Punit Dawda
http://www.itsallaboutbrands.wordpress.com
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