Good Conductor

I was waiting at the vadapalani signal to board a Metropolitan transport corporation bus to my place.For those of you who think why would someone wait near a signal instead of a bus stop, welcome to Chennai.There is a small reason behind it.Apart from the chores of driving the bus in the chennai traffic, the drivers of these bus also have another social responsibility - to improve the stamina of the bus travellers.That is one reason why they usually stop the bus either 100mts away from the bus stop either before or after, so that these people waiting to board can run towards the bus and then board it.At times the brake system in the buses might be a little late to respond, so when the driver applies it at vadapalani it might stop only at Udhayam theatre. People who do not know this usually run behind the bus until they are exhausted and then give up,others knowing this will directly go and wait at the udhayam theatre bus stop. Since I was aware of these techniques I thought that the probability of boarding a bus near a signal is more than that of boarding it in a bus stop.

Oops..that was off topic. Coming back to my post.After a couple of minutes I was lucky to board an express bus whose driver didn't bother stopping it at signal but slowly kept it moving.As usual I chose to stand on the footsteps near the conductor for the obvious reasons(part of which is explained in my choosing a seat post,the other part will have to be a separate post totally irrelevant here.)At first he looked to me like a calm and experienced conductor.I gave him a 10 rupee currency and asked for a ticket to my place. He said it costs six rupees and asked for a 1 rupee coin from me.

Now I had to dig into my wallet.I had never felt comfortable taking my wallet out while travelling in foot steps. First the swaying bus will make you lose your balance,second the pessimistic capriconic thoughts in me make me feel that the wallet is accidentally going to fall out of the bus or I might slip trying to hold on to my wallet.After negotiating all these thoughts I got hold of a one rupee coin and handed it to him.The conductor looked at me and then said 'sir give me that five rupee coin'.

Only then I realised that he has been looking into my wallet till this time.I was totally annoyed by his act.I dont have anything in my wallet that could embarass me.But for me it was a very indecent act, peeking into my wallet without my consent. He could have directly asked me for a five ruppee coin the moment I gave him the currency. I couldn't justify his act of peeking into other's wallet whatsoever.An act of misconduct from a conductor I thought.

At the next stop this guy boarded the bus. He was wearing a lungi,pulling up the bottom of it and tying it to his waist,exposing his supposedly Bermuda shorts(lungiya madichu katti iruntharu pattapati trouserukku mela..as vadivelu dons in 'orange trouser' scene). He pulled out a 100 ruppee bunch from his shorts pocket and gave one to the conductor. I saw the expression changing in conductor's face. The conductor was furious now which I thought was because of the 100 rupee given for a six rupee ticket.But to my surprise ,he called the guy near him and told him that carrying money like this inside his shorts pocket is not safe.Even if he had to he advised him not to expose it in the bus and taking a single currency out and keeping it in his shirt pocket before boarding is a much safer thing.He also told him to move to one corner of the bus and lean on to one of the seats so that he can feel the money inside his pocket.

He then started telling me that pickpocket's nowadays are very skilled.Looks like in the past week he witnessed a similar guy having money in his shorts under his lungi lose some 15000 ruppees.The theif had just cut the part of the shorts pocket with the money using a scissor/small knife without making contact with any other body part(thankfully..definitely the
pickpocket deservevs credit for his/her skill). He further added that most of the losers are not chennai guys and usually from villages.Even though vadivelu and vivek had campaigned enough in their movies about the risks involved in carrying money in crowded places like bus, these people still are attached to the same techniques they adopt in their village.The conductor also told me that he could easily identify the pickpockets from their looks,the position and posture they stand,their clothes,money handling methods and even with the currencies they give him etc.,

I'm not sure if the villager realised his mistake.But words of advise and sincerity in his job did overshadow his misconduct. When I thought about it after sometime I realised that there could be numerous justifiable reasons behind his act of peeking into my wallet and felt happy that I didn't pick up an argument with him.