three goats, four dogs and a bus driver

When we were in India last December, we decided to give Daivik a real taste of the place. We took him for a ride on a local bus from our home to the central bus stand, a journey of about 40 minutes.  The bus was not very crowded when we boarded and Daivik, after a few confusing moments to choose from the multiple empty seats on offer, decided to take the seat in the front, near the driver.

The architecture of a typical city bus in India is, well, a little different than a typical European city bus. Daivik noticed it immediately.  Even before sitting down completely, he started off.  “Mom, why is he driving on the other side?” The bus was naturally air conditioned,  the windows were fully open. “Why are the windows open?”, “Why is there no door”, “Who is that man with the whistle?” (the bus conductor, who sells tickets inside the bus and whistles to the driver about the stops)(“I want that whistle too”),”What is this bell for?” (that 'bell' is a rather charming feature of the buses from the region, a real physical metal bell, like a miniature version of a temple bell, positioned near the driver and tied to a rope that passes all the way across the bus, so that passengers can pull it to signal the driver to request a stop) (“I want to pull it”), “why is the driver wearing this uniform”…By now the bus was filling up and the seats were being taken. As people boarded the bus and heard the little boy with all these questions, they were sitting down to a changed mood and a smile.

Just then a street dog tucked under the bus. The nonplussed driver ignored it and continued. Daivik was all exclamation, “Mummy, mummy, look, look, the dog went under the bus”.  People nearby started laughing. The bus was continuing smoothly. Daivik insisted , “What happened to the dog?”. “It must have run away”, said his mother. “But I saw it getting under the bus”, said Daivik. “Dogs can run away quite fast”, replied his mother. Daivik had one of his moments of inspiration. He first asked, “Mummy, what will happen if a goat comes?”. “It will also run away”, said his mother. Now, this has become a pattern. The question he asked was not his real question. The real real question was more complicated, and came next. “Okay, what will happen if one goat, one dog, one more goat, one more dog, another goat and another dog stand in a line on the road”. I started imagining that row of alternative goats and dogs, standing across the length of the road and waiting for the incoming bus. The bus driver apparently saw that vision too. Inwardly shuddering at that nightmare, he took his eyes off the road, turned to Daivik and aksed, “Thambi, what’s your name?”.

Daivik got suddenly shy and buried his head in his mother’s knees. Suddenly there were comments all over. “What an intelligent boy”, “So many questions”, “What an imagination” (!) and compliments to his mother as well, “How do you keep answering them so patiently”.

We reached the central bus stand. Everybody was in big smiles and started patting Daivik on the shoulders, pinching his cheeks and waving on his hairs as they got down.