Why public transportation?

The most important reason why we should use public transportation is that it provides ample opportunities to be in touch with the sensitive parts of us. The countless beggars on Indian streets have mostly become mosquitoes to be swatted away by us, except for the occasional nonchalant flinging of a coin. When we use private transportation, we hardly come in any close proximity with them except for the occasional troublesome rendezvous at traffic signals. But, when we use public transportation, we have lot of opportunities to look at them into their eyes. It helps one tremendously to reflect upon the nature of reality they are witnessing and one cant but feel lucky about all the wonderful luxuries one takes so much for granted. This provides ample opportunities to develop the sensitive part of us, our hearts, for without such a well developed spiritual heart, we are as good as a corpse. When this heart develops, even a little, we start asking vitally important questions such as why there are so many underprivileged people in our society. These questions will come from our heart and we will hold ourselves accountable. We will ask ourselves about when was the last time we gave a starving urchin Rs. 100?

It also helps us to notice the state of vast majority of us. While taking personal transportation, we are mostly concerned with the chatter in our heads, almost totally in an unaware fashion. But, when we travel by public transportation, we come in touch with the external chatter that is going on all around us. The triviality and banality of most of these conversations becomes such a stark reality that we just cant escape them. What more, a little bit of honesty can immediately showcase to us how we also indulge in such banal discussions all the time. This can be a great transformative process. Another fantastic thing one notices is how people so desperately try to avoid eye contact in the buses. Why are we all so insecure? Why do we wear so many masks? Why are children able to look straight into the eye? There is benefit even in not listening to the rest. If we do get a seat, we can sit silently with our eyes closed but awake for the entire journey and that in itself is a fantastic meditative experience.

Coming to the yucky parta, public transportation in India is indeed over-crowded. Smelly arm pits and posionous gases, going by the name of perfumes and deodrants, will certainly make a big onslaught on our olfactory system. Not to mention the glares of fellow passengers when we stamp their feet accidentally. Nevertheless, its a fantastically transformative process to observe how our minds react everytime we are subject to even one such minor inconvenience. Most people who can avoid public transportation justify it to themselves on how inconvenient it is. But we fail to recollect that inconvenience is really a learned habit and can be unlearned easily (remember, for the ambanis, anything less than Antilia may be inconvenient).

Try this as often as possible!

Besides all these personal benefits, not to mention the lessening of personal stress due to cessation of driving in this mad Indian traffic, humanity as a whole stands to gain tremendously every time we take public transportation. Our precariouus civilization is totally dependent on oil and its supply is fast running out. When oil actually runs out, there is bound to be a period of total chaos, for we are dependent on everything from food to medicine on oil. Thereby it is extremely important to minimize its consumption thereby buying time for a more gradual shift into another way of living. In the meantime, it is very important for us to explore alternative lifestyles and livelihoods that are lighter on the planet, in terms of oil consumption and the concomitant pollution, and that are less violent by not supporting violent regimes around the globe even inadvertently (we do have a little bit share in the responsibility for autocratic and violent regimes in gulf countries as our oil guzzling life styles supply the oxygen to these regimes). In addition, one also contributes to the lessening of congestion of the roads in our cities. There are certainly such fantastic advantages to taking public transportation.

I totally understand that this is the perspective of a young and reasonably fit adult male in the Indian society who has the luxury of taking private transportation at will and whose livelihood does not depend on taking private transportation. The feeble and women certainly totally dont have it easy in Indian roads, especially in public modes of transport. Obviously, I am not suggesting everyone should immediately adopt what I am suggesting. The problem is primarily in our hearts as we dont take up responsibility for all of creation. When that changes, external change will commence as soon as possible, subject to external realities of course. The choices may appear hard and totally nonsensical at the outset. But, all transformative processes are like that. Consider the case of pregnancy. Its a lot of hard work for the woman - cutting away from favorite foods, lot of physical pain, many nights lost sleep, dependency on others etc. While a woman may crib at these things, a mother will not. When the woman looks at her kid smiling, all these troubles vanish into thin air. These difficulties are simply minor irritants along the path of the tranformation of a woman into a mother. Similarly, there may be irritants along the path of spiritual evolution, but for the individual who sees the worth in it, they will all be trivial. A simple change of taking public transportation can thus tremendously assist the all important transformation towards completion!