I seldom strike a conversation with a stranger on a local bus. I’m not sure what made me talk to him. And see the irony of it, he was mute.
There was something about him that made me notice as soon as he stepped in the bus. He looked around for the conductor to probably crosscheck if the bus went to his destination, found him busy and stepped out to read the LED display. Stepped in again, the conductor still busy, and found an empty seat next to me. I fumbled with my destination name with the erratic conductor while he confidently popped out a piece of paper with his destination written on it. Our destinations were same.
“Do you have any idea where 5th Cross……” he broke me off by putting his finger on his lips and signaled me that my words didn’t reach him. He was mute.
I was balled over. Didn’t know what to do. Gave him a sorry smile and looked away. There was an eerie silence which was bothering me. I had to talk to him. He was browsing the route on Google maps on his swanky Nokia E6, when the idea struck me. I took out my phone and started typing a message. When I was done, I reluctantly showed him my screen. We struck a chord.
He was going to the place to search for a house for rent. I leave if for our imagination to deal with how he must have done it. He cuffed both his palms in a way and pointed ahead to ask my purpose of the journey, I didn’t understand. He typed if I was going to see a friend? He said that he and his friends needed to move to this address so as to save travel time to office. I was wondering why his 5 other roommates had sent him to go look for a new place to put up. He smiled at me and showed his screen. “All my room mates are like me – they can’t speak or hear anything”.
I realized that the gentleman leaning on his seat was pretty inquisitive about our silent conversation and when I looked around, saw some more people looking at us with sympathy. Pity on them! I asked him about his work. I would be honest to say that I was taken aback. He along with 2 other roomies worked for Deutsche Bank as analysts, and one each for Concentrix, HP and Accenture. I meekly told him – I work for TCS.
( untyped) And do not stand anywhere near you heroes.
I did ask the conductor once how far our destination was as I had never been there, he kept calm with his GPS, and told me we are about to be there.
I didn’t want the journey to end. However we exchanged our contact details and stood up to get down. Before bidding adieu, I typed my last question - “How do you manage your life in this ugly world? “ We got down, shook hands, our eyes met. He smiled, gave me thumbs up and walked away.
*** This post is dedicated to all those physically challenged people out there who face the same world, which is ugly and mean for us.
