Arkay, Bus Conductor in India

When I was in India, I was part of a group, and a chartered bus took us from wherever we were staying to wherever we were going.

So every morning, the chartered bus picked us up.

The bus had a driver, and the bus had a conductor. The driver drove, and the conductor would help us onto the bus, and help us off, and he would stand up and talk to us during the ride.

The conductor really went by his initials – R.K.

R.K. was wonderful with people, very sweet and friendly, very sincere. He took his work seriously. He cared. He considered his work important, and I have to say he loved it.

He called me Auntie! To get me on the bus, he would be inside and actually bend down and lift me up from under my arms the way you do a two-year old. When it was time to get off the bus, he would be outside on the ground and lift me down the same way!

It was one of those bizarre things that I can’t explain. I was really capable of getting on and off the bus myself as well as anyone else, yet R.K. saw me as his responsibility, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about his service.

R.K. helped other people up or down the bus by holding them by the elbow or sometimes by the hand. Me he carried off the bus the way a dancer in a musical might swing another dancer down by the waist, except for me it was under the arms. I’d know R.K. was going to do it, and I’d gear myself, and yet there was a certain surprise every time because he did it so fast! Plunk, plunk.

Of all the Indian people I met in India, R.K. is the one I remember the most.