It's now a year since I moved out of India. For the past few months, I have been taking the bus-ride for my daily office journey. Each day I take the same bus and quietly grab the same window seat with a rather gloomy facial expression of travelling lonely. So many passengers board and leave at their destinations. There has rarely been any conversation with my co-passengers. Some of them are one time passengers while few others are the regular ones. All that I have done is given an occasional hesitant smile, here and there.
For the past one month, one particular person has been as regular as I am in taking that bus. Initially, I was nonchalant about his presence in the bus. Then there was regular eye contact with each other. However, both our reaction was cold. Gradually in the third week, there was the first exchange of genuine smile between both of us which continued subsequently. Now, I was aware of his stop as well. Eventually, last week he came up to me to greet. I responded politely. He started with a small talk about my nationality. Then we conversed on different random topics for the entire 1 hour journey to my office. He missed his daughters, who worked in another city, as much I missed my parents. And that was a reason for him to talk to me. Since that day my bus-ride to office is no longer a lonely journey. I found my bus-pal.
This was a first time experience for me where I became comfortable talking to a complete stranger. I realised that, for long I always surrounded myself with a high wall fortress every time I stepped out of my comfortable home. The sheer anxiety of being hurt by a stranger pushed me to the secluded window seat. But now I learnt that people are generally of good nature. They mean no harm to each other. One thing has changed in me for sure. I am more comfortable approaching a stranger now just like that old man approached me with a hearty smile. If each of us take a small step towards each other, the world would definitely be a better place to live in.
This post is submitted to : A to Z Challenge 2016
Do visit my other blog @POETICbug
Article © Copyright Salvwi Prasad
For the past one month, one particular person has been as regular as I am in taking that bus. Initially, I was nonchalant about his presence in the bus. Then there was regular eye contact with each other. However, both our reaction was cold. Gradually in the third week, there was the first exchange of genuine smile between both of us which continued subsequently. Now, I was aware of his stop as well. Eventually, last week he came up to me to greet. I responded politely. He started with a small talk about my nationality. Then we conversed on different random topics for the entire 1 hour journey to my office. He missed his daughters, who worked in another city, as much I missed my parents. And that was a reason for him to talk to me. Since that day my bus-ride to office is no longer a lonely journey. I found my bus-pal.
This was a first time experience for me where I became comfortable talking to a complete stranger. I realised that, for long I always surrounded myself with a high wall fortress every time I stepped out of my comfortable home. The sheer anxiety of being hurt by a stranger pushed me to the secluded window seat. But now I learnt that people are generally of good nature. They mean no harm to each other. One thing has changed in me for sure. I am more comfortable approaching a stranger now just like that old man approached me with a hearty smile. If each of us take a small step towards each other, the world would definitely be a better place to live in.
This post is submitted to : A to Z Challenge 2016
Do visit my other blog @POETICbug
Article © Copyright Salvwi Prasad
Excellent story about reaching out to people. I enjoyed reading it. You know the world would be a much better place if we took small steps toward each other, but that would mean letting down the gates around our hearts.
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Shalon,
Patricia @ EverythingMustChange
I ,too, find it difficult to talk to strangers ! But I will take inspiration from this story....
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I ,too, find it difficult to talk to strangers ! But I will take inspiration from this story....
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I am all chattering away to the stranger if I am travelling (making sure that the stranger isn't comfortable) or if I have a book then most often I don't even notice the strangers. Journey are fun and of course not alone :)
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ReplyDeleteHey keep posting such sensible and significant articles.
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