The other day I was getting off a bus at Bengaluru. I picked up my two bags and got ready to alight when somebody tapped me at the back. I turned around to see an elderly guy beckoning me. He was trying to draw my attention to the seat I had been sitting on. “What?”, I gestured to him with a raise of my chin and eyebrows. He said, “Take your items before you get down.”
I was surprised as I tend not to forget items in a bus. I still decided to check up and glanced at the seat. I could find nothing. “Nothing that’s mine, Sir”. I replied.
“Pick up your items sir”, he persisted. I checked back again to see if I had left behind something that had dropped off the seat. “Yenu illa sir”, I said in the local Kannada dialect to ensure he understood what I had said the first time. “Sir, take the black and red thing you have left behind on the seat”, he tapped me again. With a temper that was starting to rise, I turned angrily and said,”Which one, show me.”
“This one…”, he said lifting the red black thing that was like a strap. “Sir, Those are seat belts”. They belong to the bus and are not mine”, I said trying hard to suppress a smile. However three college students on the bus decided it was the best joke of the day and broke into fits of laughter. I quickly left the place, wondering how the elderly gentleman must have felt at his goof up.
