Chapter 21 - Own Reflections in Bus Window

 

21

 

            Winter evenings arrive quietly.

 

            They do not announce themselves with thunder or dramatic clouds. They simply begin stealing light from the roads, from the rooftops, from the faces of strangers sitting inside buses. One moment the world is visible in sharp detail, and the next moment it starts dissolving into silhouettes and fading colours.

 

            That evening, I was traveling in an old state transport bus moving toward the northern side of the region. The winter sun had already begun descending slowly behind fields wrapped in pale fog. The glass window beside me carried a thin layer of dust and fingerprints left by hundreds of forgotten passengers. Outside, mustard fields stretched into the distance like pieces of yellow cloth spread under the sky. Smoke rose lazily from village houses where people had already begun preparing tea and dinner.

 

            Inside the bus, life continued in its ordinary rhythm.

 

            A schoolboy in a blue sweater was trying to finish his homework while balancing a notebook on his knees. Two labourers discussed daily wages in tired voices. A middle-aged man repeatedly checked his watch as if staring at time could somehow slow it down. Near the front seat, an old woman kept counting prayer beads silently.

 

            The conductor moved through the aisle with the same expression I had seen on countless conductors before…neither happy nor sad, simply surrendered to routine.

 

            Winter journeys have a strange silence hidden beneath their noise.  Even conversations sound softer in winter.

 

            The engine growls. Passengers cough. Someone unwraps peanuts. Coins fall. Mobile phones ring. Yet beneath all this, there exists an invisible silence sitting beside everyone.  Perhaps cold weather forces people inward.  Or perhaps evenings remind human beings of unfinished things.

 

            The bus crossed a narrow bridge over a canal. I looked outside at the water reflecting the orange sky. The sun was no longer bright. It had become tired — like an old storyteller slowly lowering his voice before the final lines.  And then something strange happened.

 

            As darkness outside slowly increased, the glass window stopped behaving like a window.

 

            It became a mirror.

 

            At first, I only noticed my forehead faintly appearing on the glass. Then gradually my entire reflection emerged…my eyes, my grey hair, my winter jacket, my tired face.

 

            But the reflection was incomplete.

 

            Behind my reflected face, the outside world still continued moving.  Trees passed through my cheeks.  Electric poles crossed my forehead.  Villages drifted through my eyes.

 

            For a few seconds, I could see both worlds together…myself and the journey outside.  And suddenly I felt something difficult to explain. 

 

            Maybe every traveler eventually reaches a moment where the road outside and the road inside begin meeting each other.

 

            I kept staring at the glass.

 

            The strange thing about reflections is that they never lie completely, yet they never reveal everything either.

 

            Mirrors show faces.  Journeys show truths.

            The bus moved ahead through fading daylight. A flock of birds crossed the orange sky in a hurried formation as if even they feared being late for home.

 

            Home.

 

            What a mysterious word.  Some people spend their whole lives trying to return to a place.  Others spend their whole lives trying to escape one.

 

            As I watched my reflection, I realized how many different versions of myself had traveled through bus windows over the years.

 

            The young soldier traveling toward duty with excitement hidden behind discipline.  The middle-aged university employee carrying files, responsibilities, and silent exhaustion.  The writer searching for stories among ordinary passengers.  And now this older traveler, sitting quietly beside a winter window, watching his own reflection dissolve into sunset.

 

            Time changes people so gradually that they rarely notice it happening.  But reflections notice.

 

            A child sitting across the aisle suddenly looked toward me and smiled for no reason. I smiled back. Children often smile at strangers because they have not yet learned suspicion.  Adults first lose innocence.  Then they lose spontaneity.  Then slowly they lose wonder.

 

            Perhaps growing up is simply the slow replacement of wonder with worry.

 

            The bus stopped briefly near a roadside vendor selling roasted corn. Smoke drifted into the cold evening air. Some passengers stepped down quickly to buy tea. Others remained seated, wrapped tightly in shawls and thoughts.

 

            I stayed near the window.

 

            The sunset had deepened into darker shades now. Orange had become copper. Copper had become ash.  My reflection on the glass became clearer.  Outside world weaker.  Inside world stronger.

 

            Maybe this is exactly what aging feels like.  When we are young, the outer world appears sharp and important…ambitions, competitions, destinations, recognition.  But with time, the inner world slowly grows louder.  Regrets speak.  Memories return.  Forgotten questions wake up.  And one evening, while traveling beside a dusty bus window, a man suddenly realizes he has spent years observing the world without fully observing himself.

 

            The bus started moving again.

 

            An old song from the driver's cabin floated faintly toward the passengers. It was one of those melodies that sound more beautiful during winter evenings because sadness and cold weather have always understood each other.

 

            I watched electric wires cutting across the darkening sky. 

 

            Human beings are strange creatures.  We build roads everywhere but still struggle to reach each other emotionally.  We construct houses but search endlessly for belonging.   We spend youth chasing tomorrow, then spend old age visiting yesterday.

 

            Outside, farmers were returning home on motorcycles wrapped in shawls against the cold wind. Small fires had begun appearing near roadside shops. Dogs curled beside them for warmth.

 

            Winter villages carry a kind of honesty cities often lose.  Nothing pretends there.  Smoke looks like smoke. Fatigue looks like fatigue.  Loneliness looks like loneliness.

 

            In cities, people hide emptiness behind noise. 

 

            The boy with homework had now fallen asleep over his notebook. His pencil remained trapped between pages. The old woman with prayer beads continued whispering silently to herself. The labourers stopped talking and stared blankly ahead.

 

            Every passenger seemed lost somewhere beyond the bus. 

 

            That is the strange thing about public transport.  Bodies travel together.  Minds travel separately.

 

            I looked again at my reflection.

 

            For a brief second, I remembered another journey many years ago during my Army days. I had been sitting near a similar window, younger and stronger, believing life could be controlled through discipline and planning.  At that age, I thought destinations mattered most.  Now I know journeys matter more.

 

            Destinations end stories.  Journeys create them.

 

            The bus entered a small town glowing with evening lights. Shops displayed sweaters, tea kettles, and cheap winter caps. Loudspeakers from a nearby marriage palace echoed faintly through the streets. Somewhere, someone was beginning a new chapter of life while somewhere else another person was silently ending one.

 

            The world always moves in opposite emotions simultaneously.  One man laughs.  Another mourns.  One child is born.  Another old man closes his eyes forever.  Perhaps balance is hidden inside this contradiction.

 

            The window glass trembled slightly as the bus crossed uneven roads. My reflection broke into fragments for a moment and then rejoined itself again.

 

            Human identity is similar.  Life keeps breaking people into pieces.  Responsibilities.  Failures.

Losses.  Time.  Yet somehow they continue gathering themselves again each morning.

 

            An unsaid truth drifted through my mind:

 

            "Some people survive not because they are strong, but because life leaves them no other choice."

 

            Darkness thickened outside. Now the window had almost fully transformed into a mirror. Only distant lights remained visible beyond my reflection.

 

            Suddenly I noticed my eyes.  Tired, certainly.  Older, yes.  But strangely peaceful.  Not because life had become easy.  But because acceptance slowly replaces resistance after a certain age.

 

            Youth wants to conquer life.  Age simply wants to understand it.

 

            The conductor came near and asked softly where I would get down. I told him the name of my stop. He nodded absentmindedly and moved ahead.

 

            How many thousands of faces must he have seen over the years?  Perhaps bus conductors understand human impermanence better than philosophers do.  Passengers enter.  Passengers leave.  Seats never remain empty for long.

 

            Life itself resembles a moving bus more than people realize.

 

            No one stays forever.  No one controls the route completely.  And everyone carries invisible luggage.

 

            The old song near the driver's seat ended. For a few moments only the engine sound remained.

 

            I leaned slightly closer to the glass.  My reflection looked back at me calmly while the outside world continued sliding behind it.  And then the central thought of the journey finally revealed itself quietly inside me -

 

            Maybe every journey is divided into two travels.  One through roads.  One through the self.   Most people notice only the first one.  That is why they return from places without truly returning changed.

 

            Real journeys are not measured by kilometres.  They are measured by what they awaken inside us.  A man may travel across countries and remain unchanged.  Another may sit silently beside a winter bus window for one evening and discover truths he had ignored for years.

 

            The bus finally left the town behind and entered a darker highway. Only headlights now pierced the fog ahead. The passengers had grown quieter than before. Even mobile phones had stopped ringing.

 

            Night was slowly taking ownership of the road.

 

            I rubbed the cold glass lightly with my hand. My reflection blurred for a moment.  Perhaps this too was symbolic.  No human being ever sees himself completely clearly.

 

            We understand ourselves in fragments…through mistakes, through memories, through loneliness, through love, through loss.  And maybe that incompleteness is necessary.

 

            Perfect self-knowledge might destroy mystery.  And mystery is what keeps human beings emotionally alive.

 

            A final unsaid line settled softly within me as the bus moved deeper into winter darkness:

 

            "Sometimes the longest meeting of life happens silently between a man and his own reflection."

 

            Outside, the last colour of sunset disappeared.

 

            Inside the window glass, only my reflection remained.

Chapter 20 - A Mad Man

 

20

 

            The winter bus had become familiar to me now.

 

            Not the bus itself…buses change, drivers change, conductors change, passengers change every few kilometres…but the feeling inside it had become familiar. The fogged-up windows. The smell of woollen shawls carrying traces of old cupboards. The coughing of old men. The silence of tired labourers returning home before darkness completely swallowed the roads. The way people sat closer in winter, not because they loved each other more, but because cold teaches humans what loneliness cannot.

 

            Outside, evening had already started dissolving into fog.  The bus moved slowly along the highway like an old thought refusing to leave the mind.

 

            I had taken this route many times before…during burning summers, dusty monsoons, and now deep winter. The roadside shops looked smaller in winter. Even the trees appeared tired. Dogs curled near tea stalls. Farmers wrapped blankets around their heads while standing beside fields where smoke rose from burning crop remains.

 

            And near the old broken milestone beyond the canal bridge…I saw him again.  The same man.  The same unwashed shawl hanging from one shoulder.  The same tangled hair.  The same uncertain eyes staring not at vehicles, but somewhere beyond them.  The same slippers…one torn, one different from the other.  The same walking style, as if his body had forgotten where it was supposed to go.

 

            Months earlier, during summer, I had first noticed him standing beneath a neem tree near that highway. At that time the heat was unbearable. Everyone looked irritated by existence itself. Yet that man had stood there quietly, smiling at empty air.

 

            Today, in winter, he was still there.  Not exactly in the same spot, but within the same forgotten geography of society. 

 

                        The bus crossed him quickly, but something inside me remained standing beside him.  I kept looking through the rear window.  A little later, I noticed a truck slowing near him through the dusty rear glass. The driver shouted something playfully, and the man climbed into the back casually, as if highways themselves knew him well.  A strange discomfort entered me.  Most people inside the bus had not even noticed him.

 

            A young couple whispered softly as if protecting a private world inside the noisy bus. An elderly passenger argued with the conductor about two rupees. Near the window, a child drew shapes on the fogged glass with his finger.  Life continued normally.

 

            Only I seemed disturbed by that lonely figure.  Perhaps because repetition gives reality a deeper meaning.  Seeing a stranger once is coincidence.Seeing the same stranger repeatedly becomes a question.

 

            Who was he?  Where did he sleep during winter nights? Did he have parents once?  Did someone somewhere still wait for him? Did he also once travel in buses wearing clean clothes, carrying dreams in his pocket? Or had he always belonged to roads and dust?

 

            The conductor came shouting for tickets, breaking my thoughts.  I handed him money and looked again outside.  Winter fields passed silently under fading light.  Sometimes I feel roads remember people better than cities do.  Cities erase faces quickly. Roads do not. Roads keep collecting footsteps like old diaries.

 

            That madman had perhaps become part of the highway itself now…like a broken signboard nobody repairs because everyone has adjusted to its existence.

 

            A few kilometres later, the bus stopped near a tea stall.  Passengers hurried downward.

 

            Winter tea has its own religion in Northern Region. No sermon can unite people faster than steam rising from a steel kettle on a cold evening.

 

            I also stepped outside.  The cold air struck my face sharply.  Near the tea stall stood a bonfire made from cardboard and dry branches. A few drivers warmed their hands around it.  And then I heard someone laughing loudly.

 

            Not ordinary laughter.  The kind that sounds half-childlike and half-broken.  I turned instinctively. 

 

            It was him.  

 

            The same man.  He stood near the edge of the stall, rubbing his hands together and smiling at nobody visible.  For a moment I felt shocked, almost as if some unfinished thought had suddenly taken human form before me.  People around him behaved in predictable ways.  Some ignored him completely.  Some smirked.  One teenager mocked his walking style to impress friends.  A shopkeeper waved his hand impatiently whenever the man came too close.

 

            Yet the man himself seemed detached from all reactions.

 

            He kept staring toward the fire.  Not asking for tea.  Not asking for money.  Only looking at warmth.  That sight pierced me strangely.

 

            Human beings can survive hunger longer than they can survive exclusion.

 

            Cold outside is painful.  Coldness from society is worse. 

 

            I bought tea and stood silently nearby.  The tea seller noticed me looking toward the man.

 

            “He’s mad,” he said casually while pouring tea into small glasses. “Keeps roaming around this highway. Sometimes disappears for days. Then comes back.”

 

            “Does nobody know him?” I asked.

 

            The tea seller shrugged.  “Who cares? Maybe family threw him out. Maybe he ran away. These mad people have stories nobody has time for.”

 

            That sentence stayed inside me.  Stories nobody has time for.  Perhaps that is how madness begins.  Not suddenly.  Not dramatically.  Sometimes a person slowly becomes invisible until his own mind stops believing he exists. 

 

            The man came closer to the fire now. Someone pushed him lightly away.

 

            “Stay back,” a truck driver snapped. “You smell terrible.”

 

            The madman looked at him blankly.  Then suddenly he smiled.  Not insulted. Not angry.  Just smiling.  That smile disturbed me more than anger would have.  Because it carried surrender.  The surrender of someone who has been humiliated so many times that humiliation no longer reaches the heart.

 

            I walked closer and handed him a cup of tea.  For a second he stared suspiciously, as if kindness itself had become unfamiliar.  Then he took the glass carefully with trembling fingers.

 

            “Hot,” I said softly.

 

            He nodded.  And then something unexpected happened.  He looked directly into my eyes and said: “Winter becomes easier when somebody remembers you.”

 

            I froze.

 

            Before I could respond, he walked away slowly toward the roadside fog, sipping tea carefully.  Not shouting.  Not behaving wildly.  Not speaking nonsense.  Just walking like a tired philosopher abandoned by civilisation.

 

            The bus horn blew loudly.

            Passengers began climbing back.  But my thoughts remained near that sentence.

 

            Winter becomes easier when somebody remembers you.

 

            Inside the bus, heaters did not work properly. Windows carried thin moisture patterns. Night had deepened now.    I sat quietly while darkness moved beside us.  The highway lights appeared and disappeared like uncertain memories.  And I kept thinking about madness.

 

            Society has a very convenient habit.

 

            We first break people slowly.  Then we mock the shape of their brokenness.  A child ignored becomes “strange.”  A lonely man becomes “unstable.”  A woman carrying invisible grief becomes “difficult.”  An old man talking to himself becomes “mad.”

 

            Labels are often society’s method of avoiding responsibility.  Sometimes people are not destroyed by tragedy.  They are destroyed by continuous small abandonments.

 

            A father never listening.  Friends disappearing during failure.  Humiliation repeated casually.  Poverty eating dignity daily.  Dreams dying silently.  Love turning transactional.

 

            The mind is not stone.  Even walls crack under constant winters.

 

            I remembered an incident from my Army days.

 

            Once, near a remote posting, there was a soldier everybody mocked quietly. He spoke less, forgot instructions occasionally, and stared into distance during conversations. Officers considered him mentally weak.

 

            One night during duty, I sat beside him for hours. Slowly he began speaking.  His wife had died during childbirth.  His child had survived but lived with grandparents far away.  He had never received leave during her final illness because operational conditions were tense.  After that, something inside him had changed permanently.

 

            He was not weak.  He was carrying unfinished grief.  But institutions often measure efficiency, not wounds.

 

            Years later I realised something painful:  Many people called mad are actually people whose sorrow exceeded society’s patience.

 

            The bus moved through dense fog now. Visibility had reduced greatly. Even headlights looked tired.  Passengers had become quieter too.  Winter nights create accidental philosophers.  Perhaps darkness helps people hear their own thoughts.

 

            An old woman near me whispered prayers softly while counting beads. Across the aisle, a young man slept with his head against the vibrating window. A labourer covered his face entirely with a shawl, exhausted beyond dreams.

 

            And somewhere outside, that wandering man continued walking through cold roads nobody truly owned.

 

            I wondered where he would sleep tonight.  Under a bridge?  Near a closed shop?  At a bus stand bench?  Or perhaps nowhere permanently.

 

            Maybe society had turned movement itself into his home.

 

            There is a special loneliness in being recognised everywhere but welcomed nowhere.

 

            I looked outside again.  Fog had hidden almost everything now.

 

            Only occasional silhouettes appeared briefly…trees, electric poles, tea stalls, stray dogs…before disappearing again.

 

            Life itself feels similar sometimes.  People enter visibility for a moment, then vanish into personal fogs.  Yet certain faces remain. 

 

            That madman’s face would remain with me now.

 

            Not because he was strange.  But because he reflected something uncomfortable about humanity itself.  Civilisation proudly builds universities, flyovers, shopping malls, and digital networks.

 

            Yet it still fails at one simple task:  Keeping wounded people emotionally alive.

 

            The richest societies often produce the loneliest minds.  Perhaps madness is not always an illness.  Sometimes it is exile.  Exile from acceptance.  Exile from conversation.  Exile from dignity.  Exile from belonging.  And once someone is pushed outside society’s emotional circle, the same society points fingers and says:

 

            “Look… a madman.”

 

            The bus finally entered the town.

 

            Shops glowed under yellow winter lights. Vendors sold roasted peanuts beside roads. Smoke rose from food stalls. Life looked normal again.

 

            But inside me, something had shifted quietly.

 

            I realised that every city probably has such forgotten figures wandering through its edges…people carrying invisible collapses.  And perhaps humanity should not be judged by how it treats successful people.  But by how gently it treats those who have fallen outside usefulness.

 

            As I stepped down from the bus, cold wind touched my face again.

 

            Somewhere far behind, beyond fog and highways and sleeping fields, that wandering man was still walking.  And strangely, he no longer seemed completely mad to me.  Maybe he was only standing outside a world that had itself lost balance long ago.

 

            Sometimes the person talking alone on the roadside is not the only broken one.

 

            Sometimes the entire society is speaking nonsense together…only more fashionably dressed.