Lolling Heads
I once read a post about personal space in a Blog I visit often and I was reminded about it in an incident today morning.
Our country being densely populated with over a billion people, personal space in mega cities in public modes of transport is not even a millimeter. Almost every part of one's body is plastered against someone else’s and one is left to deal with body odor, sweat and what not! I have outgrown my days of traveling with the masses but I do use the office buses that my organization provides to ensure that we reach office in time.
Today morning I was sitting quite comfortably between two scruffy looking ladies and since it’s a long ride, I either read a book or look out of the window and count all red cars going by (ha!). My two neighbors had in the meanwhile dozed off. In the midst of an intriguing chapter from the book 'Feluda's Last case' by Satyajt Ray, I find one head dangerously close to my left shoulder. I cringe at the thought of the hair laden with coconut oil landing on my shoulder and staining my clothes. While the head on the other side seemed to have reasonably clean shampooed hair, I noticed specks of white - dandruff! Yikes!
Obviously the event of any head landing on my shoulder had to be avoided at all costs. My reading was abandoned while I navigated myself to steer clear of these objectionable swaying heads. The funny thing is that the moment the hair fell forward on their face; they were alert enough to tuck it back behind their ears (reflex action?) but when it came to controlling their lolling heads they blissfully let themselves go.
The devil in me took over and I positioned myself at the edge of the seat, away from the back rest, I knew a speed breaker was coming up and the bus would jerk. Predictably, the two heads collided together when the bus went over the speed breaker and a wide grin of satisfaction spread over my face!
Our country being densely populated with over a billion people, personal space in mega cities in public modes of transport is not even a millimeter. Almost every part of one's body is plastered against someone else’s and one is left to deal with body odor, sweat and what not! I have outgrown my days of traveling with the masses but I do use the office buses that my organization provides to ensure that we reach office in time.
Today morning I was sitting quite comfortably between two scruffy looking ladies and since it’s a long ride, I either read a book or look out of the window and count all red cars going by (ha!). My two neighbors had in the meanwhile dozed off. In the midst of an intriguing chapter from the book 'Feluda's Last case' by Satyajt Ray, I find one head dangerously close to my left shoulder. I cringe at the thought of the hair laden with coconut oil landing on my shoulder and staining my clothes. While the head on the other side seemed to have reasonably clean shampooed hair, I noticed specks of white - dandruff! Yikes!
Obviously the event of any head landing on my shoulder had to be avoided at all costs. My reading was abandoned while I navigated myself to steer clear of these objectionable swaying heads. The funny thing is that the moment the hair fell forward on their face; they were alert enough to tuck it back behind their ears (reflex action?) but when it came to controlling their lolling heads they blissfully let themselves go.
The devil in me took over and I positioned myself at the edge of the seat, away from the back rest, I knew a speed breaker was coming up and the bus would jerk. Predictably, the two heads collided together when the bus went over the speed breaker and a wide grin of satisfaction spread over my face!
Comments
Good strategy though :-)
@Nautilus: You tolerated?? How could you! You should have given her a shove so that she fell of the seat!
@Kausum: I have the same urge actually - I am always curious about any book that my fellow traveler is reading!