Heading back home on the bustling public bus, whose sudden shocks you can feel when a speedbreaker or a pothole on the road is encountered every time, whose exterior is marked with the scars of the heavy battle it has fought (to be driven) throughout its existence, I saw a butterfly abruptly being swept inside by the gust of wind through one of the many open windows of the bus. From the vague looks of it, it seemed like the “Common Tiger”, who mistakenly entered the “Common bus” (Not so much of a Tiger after all, eh!).
While in awe of its beauty and simultaneously sympathising with how suddenly it had found itself trapped inside the bus, I also looked at the other commuters, hoping someone else would share my reaction. I saw an old man dressed in a security guard’s uniform sitting beside me by the window, his wrinkled hands gripping the tiffin box his mistress would’ve packed with love, looking outside the bus instead, lost in thoughts of memories of the past. Another old-timer sitting across from me, in the aisle seat, wearing a navy blue shirt, contrasting the pellucid blue sky outside the bus, with one hand holding his Aluminum staff while the other holding the front seat handle, dozing off for short spans instead, exhausted by the utter endurance needed to sustain oneself. Two children, the boy in the aisle seat and the girl in the window seat, sitting side by side, their hair messy and clothes shabby, holding onto each other’s hands, their soulful eyes on the people instead, gazing into their souls, reflecting in theirs. How the world must’ve been for them, to bargain their innocence for maturity.
Just then, the butterfly escaped. And I was left with my thoughts to consume me for the rest of the journey. Aren’t we also the butterfly, with beauty that is never appreciated as deserved to be, trapped unwillingly inside the bus of life, that acquaints us with death to be?
It mistakens the glass windows for the salvation it seeks. Bewildered by the environment it was never meant to be in, flapping left and right with revolt in one breath and hope in the next, it fights for a place to fit in. Not knowing, the cruel stage was set and shared by the fellow living beings that have been, it curses the one who made the stage to be.