It was a beautiful spring afternoon and I was visiting the University of California, Los Angeles campus. After having signed up for one of the writing courses, I headed back home. While waiting at the bus stop for a ride back to my four walls, I was watched the world pass by.
A young girl standing next to me was gleefully devouring her chocolate ice cream. I couldn’t help looking at how, she struggled to keep it from melting and dripping over her fingers. She caught my glance and we both smiled. I looked away, afraid that she might think I was greedy.
To distract myself, I started reading up the route chart displayed on the bus stop. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and almost bumped into a tall man glaring at me. Before I knew, he started abusing me with almost all the alphabets that existed in his vocabulary. I was terrified and shocked. I looked around for help. The ‘ice cream’ girl had shrunk to half her size. Her ice cream had slipped from her fingers and lay melting on the pavement. She looked petrified. Sensing the danger, we instinctively inched closer to each other.
The man was getting aggressive by the moment. I prayed that the bus would come to our rescue. Meanwhile, a young man, his wife and two children also came up to the bus stop. Our perpetrator turned his attention to them. While the family got their share of fancy words, the kids, a boy and girl hid behind the parents.
All of us stood there trying to make sense of what was happening. Suddenly, the little boy, who had been hiding behind his father, came upfront. With all the courage and strength he had, he shouted ‘shut up’. For a second, everything was still. Even the traffic next to the bus stop halted. The signal had gone red, so had the angry man abusing us.
He suddenly saw the collective strength at the bus stop. All of us had woken up, standing next to each other, ready to give it back. The lights turned green. The traffic zoomed past us. The angry man retreated.
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, or cry at the abuse. Instead, I went up to the little boy, who had been the most grow-up of us all and hugged him.
The common purpose of us all, at the bus stop, loomed large in the background. The orange Metro bus, with 20 flashing across its forehead had arrived to take us to our destinations. I snuggled into an empty seat, along with my co-travellers from the bus stop. I dwelled on how adversity had connected me to fellow human beings, irrespective of race, colour and religion. I wondered if the world would ever make this a norm.
A young girl standing next to me was gleefully devouring her chocolate ice cream. I couldn’t help looking at how, she struggled to keep it from melting and dripping over her fingers. She caught my glance and we both smiled. I looked away, afraid that she might think I was greedy.
To distract myself, I started reading up the route chart displayed on the bus stop. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and almost bumped into a tall man glaring at me. Before I knew, he started abusing me with almost all the alphabets that existed in his vocabulary. I was terrified and shocked. I looked around for help. The ‘ice cream’ girl had shrunk to half her size. Her ice cream had slipped from her fingers and lay melting on the pavement. She looked petrified. Sensing the danger, we instinctively inched closer to each other.
The man was getting aggressive by the moment. I prayed that the bus would come to our rescue. Meanwhile, a young man, his wife and two children also came up to the bus stop. Our perpetrator turned his attention to them. While the family got their share of fancy words, the kids, a boy and girl hid behind the parents.
All of us stood there trying to make sense of what was happening. Suddenly, the little boy, who had been hiding behind his father, came upfront. With all the courage and strength he had, he shouted ‘shut up’. For a second, everything was still. Even the traffic next to the bus stop halted. The signal had gone red, so had the angry man abusing us.
He suddenly saw the collective strength at the bus stop. All of us had woken up, standing next to each other, ready to give it back. The lights turned green. The traffic zoomed past us. The angry man retreated.
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, or cry at the abuse. Instead, I went up to the little boy, who had been the most grow-up of us all and hugged him.
The common purpose of us all, at the bus stop, loomed large in the background. The orange Metro bus, with 20 flashing across its forehead had arrived to take us to our destinations. I snuggled into an empty seat, along with my co-travellers from the bus stop. I dwelled on how adversity had connected me to fellow human beings, irrespective of race, colour and religion. I wondered if the world would ever make this a norm.
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