First Bus Journey

A few days back I was travelling from Kolhapur to Pune via the state transport bus with my 4 year old kid. Like any 4 year kid the world over, who has always travelled in the family car, he was excited about travelling in a bus. His reason for the same was pretty simple. A bus is much more impressive as compared to a car. At the bus station, he was at first bewildered by the chaos that you always associate with these places. But soon he started enjoying the sights and sounds of the place. A packet of popcorn and he was set. He then took to suggesting which bus he liked and we should be taking to Pune. He wasn't happy that all the impressive and big buses were for other places and none for Pune. He extracted a promise from me to escalate the matter to the "Boss" of the bus station.

By then I convinced him that the green and white "asiad" buses were actually better as they were faster. I think that were boys are concerned "fast" is a magic word. This dialog took me back to my childhood days when I too was attracted to multi coloured tourist buses and we inevitably always got on the red&yellow state transport. My father used to convince me that the bus that we were travelling was the fastest. And then I used to be happy as we passed almost all the vehicles that were passing in the same direction. I guess that some things never change.

By now my kid was impatient why the bus that we were in was not yet in motion. I had to be inventive in my responses to ensure that he didn't get bored. Eventually the bus started and the smile on his face when he heard the roar of the engines start was worth all the pestering of the past 40 minutes. A window seat ensured that he was occupied with all the sights and sounds of the travel. Throughout the travel he kept the questions coming thick and fast and thankfully I gave satisfactory answer to most of them..

Well in all it was a successful baptism of travel by bus for my kid. And through him me, as I relived all my childhood memories of travelling long distances via bus. Hope both of us have many more such travels together.