My School Bus

A glimpse of that car. Matador- A van that has multiple sitting arrangements. Took me back to the days when I was blue and white for 8 hours of the day. Except waking up in the morning and class test- life was one helluva fun!

School bus- is such an overwhelming impact in my life. I revisited all the crazy moments as I saw an old tattered “matador van” parked aside the central avenue. My school bus resembled this one. It was a very curious looking van. Ours’ was a beige coloured matador. And what intrigued me most were the two sky-windows at the ceiling of the car. Pieces of sky travelled with me as I took a joy ride to school every day. At 7.15 am sharp the blowing of two hooting horn announced that my school bus has come to pick me up! Mostly I used to be in a very messy condition. The ‘school tie’ dangling untied round my neck, the pair of socks in my hand, the black ballerina school shoe barely cladding my feet, the very heavy school bag(my world) placed like Atlas’ globe on my shoulder – and then the run towards the bus- almost a daily routine. This led to a very recurrent dream- I am unable to wear my shoes and the school bus is leaving without me. That made me so insecure. The fact that I would not be able to reach my Alma Mater made me very jittery. Though there were thousand other means to reach my school if I missed my bus, yet it was a very weird feeling- it almost scared me to think I missed my bus. It felt quite like missing out on something intrinsic.

Now see what happened to me - One glimpse and I am time travelling backward. I can see the blue & white uniform clad- rugged me, smiling back at this adulterated version. She is running to catch her school bus- she is waving at me as the sky windows shower her with beaming sunlight. She is disappearing into a green haze-as the door shuts. There she vanishes…amid the roaring engine and cheerful voices- that no longer consider me to be a part of them.