Fear of the Dark

“Night buses?”

“Oh horror! What if the driver falls asleep? Or what if the person next to you turns out to be a pervert? Or what if the robbers rob every penny out of you?”

You know what? These all are now old wife’s tales regarding the journey on the night buses. Now? Now it’s something like this:

“Did you get stoned on the way? Or was there window pane for your seat? Or did your bus have the front window?”

If you’ve read my last blog post, I’d said that the journey during the earthquake had been my most horrible journey till date. But I take it all back. I’ve travelled some few journeys now to surpass that and let me completely forget the journey made during the disaster.

I’m the first one in my entire family to travel by the night buses. Yay! For me, right? You know how mums are. Similarly, my mum was against me travelling amidst the night until that time came when I had no other choices. The world is round, of course. There’re no day-buses from Pokhara to Dharan and vice versa and if only I was the sworn daughter of Bill Gates, I could afford to travel all the way to Biratnagar and then to Kathmandu and then to Pokhara by air all the time.

I believe the fear of getting hurt is the worst kind of fear….be it either emotional or physical. And maybe the fear that gives you goose bumps when you realize that the bus you’re about to board has almost no window panes as well as the front screen, is even greater. Well, where did all the panes go? We all know. We all are so scared of getting hurt.

I can’t even start to explain how dreadful the entire 12 and something hours is when you’re travelling this way during the current situation of the country. No, the fear is really allayed when you’re seeing the moving trees and people outside. Then you think there’s nothing to be scared of and you’re diverted most of the times. Then a place comes where all of the vehicles gather and the policemen lead the way whereas the vehicles follow them in a file just like the tiny ants that often distract us from our studies during the time of the exam. The bus helper sometimes warns us to pull the curtains down and one even advised to put on helmets if we’d brought one. Then that’s the point when you start assuming “Okay, it’s the right time to start getting worried”.

I didn’t have a wink of sleep throughout the way. I was too busy imagining the way the stones could fling our way and shatter the delicate frames that kept off the cold air from entering us and peeping out of the curtain making imaginary figures holding stones in the dark. For someone like me, who has a very minimum idea about the political scenario, its kinda confusing. You know, there are so many lives that cannot stop functioning no matter what the situation is. We ought to go home for Dashain and we ought to come to study, that too on time. Though we don’t have petrol right now, we do get pet (stomach) rolls. We ought to meet the hand to mouth problem no matter what…also the hand to brain problem, if you know what I mean. I bet no one wanted to go against the bandas risking their own lives but life has to move on. All thanks to the bus drivers and their helpers for behaving stoically and helping us reach our destinations safely, if I may say, in the current situation.

And I can’t even start to compare this tiny piece of difficulty faced by me with the dire situations faced by thousands of our fellow residents of Terai.

I know we can’t agree with everyone. Even when we’re with our siblings or parents, we can’t nod at everything they say or take everything they’ve bought us or obey very decision they throw at us. We fight, we throw things, we don’t eat and in the process do not let them eat and we warn them that we’re going to leave the house forever and think we can stay at our friend’s. But after sometime, even though we’re still not happy with them, we realize that we’ve nowhere to go and at the end of the day, home is the only place we got to return and it’s the place where it feels safe. We can’t fight with our own forever. After all, we’re one. We didn’t fall even when nature itself decided to shake us off our ground. We didn’t fall during our argument with the most superior, nature, herself; I believe an argument between our own could never fray us apart.

I hope the concerned persons will acknowledge the crux of the problems of the citizens soon and hopefully, soon, everyone and I literally mean everyone, will get to return to their homes safely and happily with all the amount of goods they need. Have a happy Dashain and Tihar!