Hello Friend

I was standing in the mall looking at something. My daughter who was visiting was with me along with my grandchildren. Just then I felt a pat on my shoulder and there I saw my friend of many years. We started speaking and she asked “is this your daughter, oh God, how time flies”. I introduced her to my grandchildren. My daughter excused herself and stepped into the shop selling clothes. My friend and me spoke and spoke, we never realised how long we have spoken. It was probably close to an hour. My daughter had finished her shopping and my granddaughter came to look for me, because the purse was with me.

We stopped talking and took down our respective mobile numbers and parted. We completed the shopping in the mall and then got into the car. My granddaughter asked me, “who was that Patti, you forgot the shopping when you saw her”. I told her she was my bus friend. My daughter chimed in “what, that was your bus friend and you spoke to her like you were the best of friends and she even remembered my name, like after 20 years and you her children’s name!!” I

My grandchildren were curious to know what a bus friend is. I had to explain.

When I was working, I would walk with my daughter to her school in the morning leave her there and then come to the bus stop to take a public bus to work. I had to take 2 buses. I would take the same bus every day and I would meet the same people in this bus. If I was early by a few minutes to the bus stop, I would know everybody there and we would chat till the bus comes. Once in the bus we had more common people and the chatting continued. I had one set of friends in the first bus and one set of friends in the second bus. If someone did not show up, we would enquire about their wellbeing. We shared office gossips, politics, movies, serials, actors, actresses, our family life, education of our children, etc. If we were in the same kind of job, we discussed the new policies and the difficulty we had when doing the job. We sought advice from the other person on a problem. We discussed vacancies in each other’s firms and recommended people to that post. We shared sweets on occasions. We even celebrated a bus day, where we all contributed and bought sweets to the driver and conductor of the bus. These were jolly times and these friendships went on till someone got married (younger ones), someone was transferred, someone quit. This was a rare kind of friendship, which did not go beyond the bus. I guess at the back of our minds we never forgot each other.

When I took down her telephone number, I knew for sure we would exchange greeting on functions and an occasional Hi How are you.

My granddaughter listened attentively to this. I was sure she did not quite understand how a small meeting in the bus, could ignite so many friendships.

I am sure the new generations will never experience this kind of friendships. Gadgets have replaced friends.

Once you get into the bus or train, you are so glued to your screens that you do not know who is sitting beside you.

I was surprised, a few days back, when I was to going by metro to Whitefield, I asked a guy standing in the line, if I am on the right platform. He looked really confused and said “I don’t know”. He travelled with me and I got off at whitified and he was still sitting next to me buay with his phone. The phone has conquered everyone’s mind that they are not aware of their surroundings. They do not even know which stations we pass while we go home.