A little prayer on the move

At 7.10 every morning, I rush out of my apartment with my friend/ flat mate/ colleague and head towards the 223 bus terminal. Out of breath, I catch the nearest seat, spaced well from the window. My friend sits in another (we prefer the comfort of a 20 minute independent nap time over adjacency). As we wait for the bus driver to finish his last sip of morning tea, the bus pandit makes his way. Before moving to Kolkata and starting out early everyday, I never knew that buses had pandits too. He wears a white vest, sometimes covered in a saffron kurta, and a faded white dhoti. Like every pandit, he carries a braided tiki on his head and bears a solemnity in his eyebrows that could be read as nonchalance or perhaps chore. His hands and feet move swiftly. He boards the bus with a tiny basket in his left hand while his right hand makes way toward the front panel. Right beside the driver’s seat lie framed photos of Kali, Durga, Ganesh and other friends. From his basket, he takes out his metal bell, stringed garlands of hibiscus, and exactly two incense sticks. He quickly finishes tinkling his bell, puts on the garlands on the photo frames, lights the incense with unfailing strokes of a single matchstick, and marches out of the bus exactly how he came. He makes no eye contact with any passenger looking. His departure always smells like sandalwood and fresh flowers. It is cue to the bus driver’s last sip of tea and he makes his way forward to start the day on his steering wheel. 

I have known pandits who were hired on Vishwakarma puja days to perform prayers and rituals for vehicles. Yet, it has been my first time knowing a pandit who waits at bus terminals to perform little rituals every morning. Through winter I saw him come, wearing a monkey cap or muffler, despite the worn out cotton dhoti beneath, and through monsoons, sometimes hopping over puddles, making his swift hands swifter while offering garlands and incense. At other times, I have seen him standing under a roadside tree, or sitting quietly on a bench near the bus drivers’ favourite tea stall. His cloth bag filled with the tiny wooden basket of worship, many garlands for many buses, and other pandit stuff, strapped well across his shoulder. He seems pensive in waiting, as though waiting could be more difficult than performing rituals. Until the next bus arrives, and passengers fill it up, and the driver nears the end of his tea cup, he waits. He then takes long strides, finishes his performance in a minute, and cues departure again. 

It is strange to me how professions become interdisciplinary. There is no business of a teacher like me to know and look out for the pandit, and there is no reason for the driver to wait till the pandit blesses his bus, and the doctors, office men, nurses and students who travel along with me, have no business to stare at each other too. Yet, buses test patience, they test loyalty. We wait until the bus arrives at the terminal, the pandit waits until the passengers sit, the driver waits until the pandit performs, and the bus waits until the driver starts off. When the fresh scent of sandalwood and hibiscus hits me, I momentarily forget about my chapped lips, my 3 hours of sleep, my gnawing hunger, my hate for my undercompensated job, and I begin wondering what the pandit must pray to gilded frames of 2D gods and goddesses, what must the driver seek as blessing for his only means of income, what must the gods be thinking looking at an array of early morning professionals - do they know what torture hides behind that bravado of ethnic formals and company merchandise at 7 am in the morning or do they only bless us with a prevention of death and a road accident? Could I walk up to the pandit one day and ask him to bless me with no traffic jams on my way to work when I am already running late? Could I even ask him for how long he’s been a bus pandit and what does he do the rest of the day when all the fresh buses have been blessed and they’ve started off? What are his work hours? What is his income? Where is his home, or does he live near the bus terminal? Why does he not smile or look at anyone? I have never heard him speak. Why is he so swift? Does he have answers to my questions? A bus pandit. It is one of those great revelations of life where only questions can answer questions. How did I live so many years of my life, commuting on public transport through school days, college days, and half of work days, and not know about a pandit who waits to bless a bus? My curiosity shall find her way someday, perhaps not today though.