There can never be enough stories about transportation in India!

The buses in Jodhpur are generally a dirty white color about half the size of an American school bus, with seats that line the inside and bars on the top for the majority of the passengers who have to stand. There are no clear marked bus stops, so you just kind of wait at any corner and hail down your bus number when you see it rumbling down the road. Often it hardly stops, the man who collects the bus fees, shouts in Hindi while hanging outside the continually open door at potential passengers running alongside the bus in order to leap inside. I’m assuming he’s saying hurry up and get on because we’re not stopping! I grab the vertical rail on the side of the door and slip into the bus, greeted immediately by inquisitive and shocked eyes, flirtatious grins, and shy women staring behind their colorful veils draped lightly over their faces, curious why a tall white girl in traditional Indian dress is taking public transportation.
I used to take a tempo to work (basically a larger version of a taxi motor rickshaw) while generally the tempo’s are no less crowded than the bus, they are slightly more expensive but take a more direct route. However, whether in a bus or tempo, you have to have a lot of patience as neither is really that efficient or takes a direct route. While the bus number always gets me to the right destination, I have this feeling we take a different route every time, and since the bus driver’s first concern appears to be speeding, there is often congestion of the same number bus stopping at the same place. This issue is addressed by one of the buses simply waiting for any amount of time ranging from five to twenty minutes, while the bus drivers gets out and has a cup of chai. There is no regular bus schedule, so you could wait a half hour for a bus or see two buses with the same number whizzing by one right after the other.
I try not to dwell on the inefficiency of the system but instead enjoy the adventure and sights along the way. There is at least one person per ride who tries to test out their English skills or at least pretends to speak English so they can ask which stop is yours and get off with you. Luckily I have become an expert at acting confused by these requests, pretending English is not my first language. Most people are just curious though what an American is doing in Jodhpur or genuinely want to help, often standing up to give me a prized seat on the perpetually over crowded bus. The seat order seems to be elderly people, then mothers with young children, and next confused white people.
The best seat is one by a window where you can escape the smell of sweat, dirt, and smoke for a brief moment as the breeze crushes against your cheek. The bus whizzes by countless small shops selling any array of products and snacks in seemingly undefined shops. The only clearly marked stores are cell phone shops, banks, and gas stations, everything else is a blur of dust covered cement cut outs, where shop keepers could spend eternity sweeping the dirt and sand off their storefront steps.
The bus flies by a camel pulling a cart of sticks and numerous rusty bicyclist, as dusty cars and motorbikes spit out black smoke, honking and passing on the right and left. Somehow this all appears normal to me now, I even recognize the jumble of shops, and can pick out my favorite cloth store and samosa stand. I know when I’m five minutes from home (unless we have to randomly stop in order to ease congestion of the fifteen number bus) and if I ever forgot my stop the change collector on the bus recognizes me now and calls out my stop loud and clear in his best English, and makes sure the bus slows to an actual halt to let me off. There are chuckles as I find my way through the passenger standing packed as tight as pickles in a jar as I’m plucked off the bus when it lurches to a brief stop. I’m smiling when I get off the bust too, trying to picture that many people squeezing onto a bus in the U.S.. The definition of comfort is definitely culturally dependent! As I readjust my shoulder bag and glance at the bus picking up speed again, my heart skips a beat in anticipating of the stories I’ll have tomorrow when I board the bus all over again.