I was on my way to Cotton College, panbazaar, to attend a quiz in a public bus from khanapara. It was stranded on the bhangagarh bus station for an awfully large amount of time as it was almost empty as the day being Sunday. I was suffering from a mild headache and since I didn’t want to be bothered by the cacophony of the environment I had my earplugs on with a song from arctic monkeys blaring at the maximum possible volume.
Having nothing to be preoccupied with, I started to look to the other side of the road. I found the roads to be having a lesser density of vehicles than usual, which was perhaps expected the day being a Sunday. I suddenly caught hold of a girl hurriedly and I must say quite dangerously trying to cross the road. She came from the other side of the busy G.S. road to the divider in between narrowly escaping a collision with a biker. She seemed to be in an emergency. She had adorned a funny looking woolen multicolored hat, a black jacket, blue jeans, and pumps and had a backpack on her back. She wore glasses and seemed to be in her late teens.
Suddenly I began to hear some commotion even with my earplugs still blaring loud music. I at once opened them to get a sense of the situation. All I could hear were some incomprehensible noises. Then I saw two shabbily dressed women enter the bus through the back door. They seemed to be in a rush. One of them started calling someone one her phone and said to him/her to get ready in paltan bazaar. Strangely enough these two ladies were standing even with seats available. Amusingly one of them was acting as though she was scratching her body, although trying to conceal her act with her shawl. Also she was stomping her feet with her shoes as though trying to kick something.
Then I heard a female voice shouting to return her money. I turned around to notice the girl with the funny looking hat rushing into the bus. I then began to understand a little from the ramblings of the girl and the two shabbily dressed women. Allegedly according to the girl these two women had stolen her wallet and she wanted it back. The women retorted that her allegation was baseless and to mind her manners and think twice before accusing an innocent person. They also asked whether she had seen her stealing her wallet. She said that other people had seen them doing so and were ready to testify against them.
My co passengers were worried of the whole situation. So they asked them settle their grievances outside the bus so that we can continue our journey without much ado. And so the bus started. The commotion and the ensuing situation seemed to have benefitted the bus as there were now more passengers and the seats were almost filled up. I once again started to put on my earplugs, when something caught my attention. Lying on the floor of the bus was a wallet. I immediately called the conductor of the bus and pointed my finger in the direction to make him notice the wallet on the floor. He immediately picked it up and began to look through its contents. The bus had been barely twenty minutes from the last bus stop.
The conductor was browsing the contents of the bag publicly. Everyone seemed to be having a good time in peeking through the belongings of a stranger. There in one of the compartments was a driving license and the picture on it was that of the girl with the hat. Suddenly I came to understand the whole situation that happened at the previous bus stop. The two ladies may have stolen the wallet of the girl and when they realized she was after them they hopped onto a bus. But the girl still chased them to the bus. The other one was just merely trying to hide the wallet and when she saw the girl in the bus decided to get rid of the evidence. She stomped her feet merely to kick the wallet out of immediate sight of passengers and the girl.
Meanwhile the conductor asked the driver to stop the bus. one of the passengers who seemed to be in thirties with a haircut similar to army volunteered to take the wallet to give it to the girl as the previous bus stop was hardly five minutes away on foot. He jumped off and began running back to the bus stop. The bus started and everyone were talking about how they knew the two women were thieves from the get go, how they pitied he condition of the girl, etc. some of them even started credit for having discovered the wallet. I meanwhile kept to myself and didn’t join the conversations starting around me. I put on my earplugs and started switched on my mobile’s music player. Ironically enough the song playing on my player that time was “do I wanna know” by Arctic Monkeys. As other people engaged in the conversation, I closed my eyes listening to the music in my ears, the bus started inching closer to my destination.
