Are you a daily bus passenger? Are you a lady? Is your height below 5’2”? Then you are surely in the danger zone. In a city like Kolkata with its overpopulation, you at any instance would find fewer buses on the roads than needed by the passengers. And this being a rule of our traffic system , it is of no mention that the Kolkatans have admitted themselves to their fate and forgot the luxury of enjoying a seat in a bus, the most affordable transport of the commoners!!
Myself belonging to the commoners, is too a daily bus passenger and by fate, has to take bus to my work place and back home daily. Experiencing and observing the daily suffering of the bus passengers, especially the ladies, due to numerous limitations, I thought of listing up a few strategies for making our journey, well, a bit better in our commoners’ way. Well I can’t say let’s stop journey by bus at one go. We do have to take the rides, board on those unfootable platforms, hang from those bars over the heads balancing ourselves against the inconsiderable cycles of speeding and braking through the miserably surfaced roads of the city. And we have no escape!!
So standing in this situation, and inside a filthy crowded bus, what we can do is to make some calculations and understand the science of inertia to make our journey a little comfortable out of all discomfort provided by our most respected traffic department.
So, let’s understand the science of inertia first. The science of inertia says that in a moving bus our feet catch the speed faster than the other parts of our bodies as the feet are in direct contact with the platform right over the wheels. And for that reason, we lean backward as the bus speeds up and lean forward when it stops. At those moments all the standing passengers inside, lose their balance, fall on each other, have their wrist or ankles twisted, ladies rebuke the gentlemen for not keeping their balance even being physically stronger than the ladies, gentlemen get irritated at ladies for ladies not being enough considerate in a crowded bus……ohhhhhh!!! What a hilarious situation!! But we are well habituated with these situations and are ready to compromise with this daily chaos. But how long? Won’t we ever find a way out? Yeah we will. And here it is:
1. Ladies catch hold of the bar overhead with your left hands and never ever use you right hands for this if you are standing on the allowed space for the ladies on the left side of the buses. This makes you stand in the bus with your face in the direction of the movement of the bus and saves you from falling on the floor or getting your wrist twisted on abrupt use of brakes for slowing down.
2. Gentlemen, please use your right hands always for holding the bar if you are standing on the right and use left hands as the ladies, if you choose to stand on the left side of the bus. The reason is same as the point no 1.
3. Of course, the stronger you hold the bar, the better you stand on.
Now let’s make some calculations. From my observation over the ten years of regular bus journey, I found that the bar of the buses available in Kolkata is placed at around 6 feet from the floor. I also found that a height of 5’3” for ladies and 5’5” for the gentlemen are the most suitable ones to stand on an overcrowded bus and well on your own feet. The shorter ones don’t get to catch the bar and the taller ones don’t get enough space to keep their hands comfortably which ultimately adds to the poor balancing of their bodies. You must admit from your experience that you are most comfortable and well balanced when your hand is fully stretched to hold the bar only. If it’s shorter, you lose your balance and if it’s longer, it does not add anything to your balance. So what could we do?
1. Ladies increase your heights up to 5’3” by adjusting the height of the heels of your shoes. Taller ladies must stand a row behind so that the extra length of their hands is adjusted by the distance of the bar from them.
2. Gentlemen, please feel free to try on heeled shoes if you are below the average height and adjust your heights up to the comfortable range. Taller men should stand one or two rows behind according to the length of their hands.
Now, at this point some of my fellow passengers can raise their eyebrows and ask me the following question: if the taller people always stand rows behind they fall on zero possibility zone for getting a seat on the way when some seats are empty, because the people standing in front rows would definitely occupy the seats, at once, some seated persons leave them.
Ok I agree, always. But let’s give it a deeper thought.
Tell me why we want a seat in a bus?
Ummm….may I list up the reasons for you?..Well, I may want a seat in a bus surely for
1. Comfort,
2. To enjoy an on-journey nap,
3. To have a look at the class notes, if I am a student,
4. To play with sms with our beloved ones
5. To spare my hands and legs from the merciless pain and most importantly (may be…not for all…..still I doubt).. for enjoying the pain of the standing people and think big of myself being privileged and lastly
6. To enjoy the fight of the standing people from a position as comfortable as a gallery seat.
Ok, now tell me why the standing people almost fight with each other to occupy a single seat?
Who doesn’t know? Just to relieve themselves from the merciless suffering of a over-stuffed suffocating bus and of course for the reasons listed above.
So can we say from the above observations that we may not want a seat if we are allowed to stand comfortably and peacefully inside the bus? If so, let me ask you readers, wont we show a little generosity by leaving the seat in front of me for the taller person who left me the space in the first row for our mutual journey of comfort and peace? Who doesn’t know that a peaceful mind can give birth to a more generous world to live in?
So up to this you, my fellow passengers, would definitely agree with me, wont you? But still I feel one point short in our way to ultimate comfort. Till now I have mainly discussed about utilising the vertical space we get in a bus in better way. Isn’t it? But we still have the most important space to manage and that is the horizontal space. We must fit ourselves in that rectangular space of a bus without much pushing each other, right? That can be even easier if we maintain an average slim built of our bodies. A slim figure helps us to move quickly inside a bus making passage through the queues of standing people and also takes less space giving a few more people an opportunity to take the same bus to reach to their destinations in time.
So, people with huge mass, please try your heart and soul to reduce in volume. Won’t you ever think of your fellow passengers? How on earth you occupy space for two people and pay for one only? If you some day try to think over the discomfort you yourselves have when standing in a crowded bus, you would definitely come to a finding that if you are horizontally stretched much, your vertical position is automatically challenged and you find no escape from the sufferings.
So, all of you, my dear fellow passengers, are requested to be wise, act wise for a better world…..errr…for a better bus journey!!, and a greater smile to your colleagues at the offices and families at homes.
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