A bus ride I didn't expect to remember

Today I took the morning bus instead of booking a cab, mostly because I was trying to save money. I expected the usual crowd, noise, and traffic. But somewhere between the bus stop and my destination, the journey turned into one of those dYs that stays in your mind.

The bus arrived already half full. People squeezed in anyway, because apparently there is always room for one more person. I found a place near the window and watched the street move past. School children adjusted theirbbags, an old man counted coins, and a woman quietly balanced a steel container.

At the next stop, a woman got in carrying a basket of jasmine flowes. She sat down , took out a thin thread, and began stringing the flowers together with astonishing speed. Her fingers moved automatically while she chatted with another woman. The bus shook constantly, but her hands never missed.

Outside the window, I noticed a tiny puppy sitting near a tea shop. It was ridiculously cute, with oversized ears, dusty paws, and the serious expression of someone with important business, I smiled at it through the glass. For a second the traffic , horns, and crowd disappeared completely at all.

When the bus moved forward, the puppy ran alongside is for a few seconds. I know it couldn't keep up, but I watched until it disappeared behind the vehicles. It made me happy. I wondered whether someone fed it, where it slept, and whether it knew how adorable it was.

Further along I saw a flower seller attanging garlands under a faded umbrella, a man pushing a cart filled with tender coconuts, and two schoolgirls sharing, something from a paper packet. At a signal a grandmother adjusted her saree. Checked her handbag, and waited beside a boy nearby quietly together.

Inside the bus, everyone seemed to have their own small universe. Someone whispered into a phone another passenger slept against the window and a college student desperately revised from a notebook. Near the front the conductor moved through the crowd calling out stops while collecting fares without slowing

Down quietly.

None of these people know each other and most probably forgot one another before reaching home.byet for those few kilometres our lives overlapped. We shared the same rattling bus , hot air sudden brakes,,and important traffic . It felt strangely intimate, even though nobody said anything to me there inside

When I got down, I realized I had spent the journey noticing things I usually ignore. The jasmine, sleeping passengers, roadside sellers, children and that ridiculous little puppy. Nothing extraordinary had happened. Maybe that was exactly why I remembered it. A bus ride had given me something worth carrying home.