Happy April Fool's Day in advance

How often does it happen that you get inside a bus and then something happens there and you wish you hadn’t boarded the bus in the first place? I for one have found myself in the midst of many such uncomfortable situations.

On one such occasion, a few years back, I had boarded a bus along with some college folks. There were some pretty girls in the group and as usual I was checking them out. However, what stuck me was that one of them had put up a sad face. She was surrounded by her friends who were consoling her. The decibel levels of their conversation gradually increased until it became irritating. There hardly arose any need for eavesdropping to get the wind of what they were up to.

As it turned out the girl’s family had been handed a list of things by her would be in-laws that would constitute her dowry and her family was at their wits end to find an amicable end to the impasse. Upon hearing this, her friends who until now had been patient listeners suddenly became enraged. I for one, found their resentment rather misplaced for two reasons. Firstly, the girl was barely in her twenties and why on earth would she want to get married in the first place. And secondly, dowry hasn’t acquired a critical mass in this part of the country to be counted as a really big problem compared to the rest of mainland India.

Suddenly, one guy shouted slogans and then his friends followed suit. The pandemonium inside the bus had by then began to get on to the nerves of other co-passengers. One young gentleman pleaded that they take their grievances to a suitable forum outside, instead of creating a ruckus inside the bus. By doing so he had inadvertently stirred the hornet’s nest and had to pay the price by lending his ears to one of the girls who delivered a spirited lecture on the evils of dowry besides accusing him of being indifferent to the plight of others. He eventually conceded defeat at the hands of his determined opponent after many futile attempts at reconciliation. In the meantime, interestingly, a middle aged gentleman decided to jump on to the bandwagon and joined in the sloganeering. For a moment he seemed to be at the helm of affairs in the group. Perhaps, he didn’t want to be at the receiving end like the rest of us.

All this while, I was looking outside my window trying to unsuccessfully convince myself that I didn’t belong to the bus. I imagined myself being miraculously transported to some pristine uninhabited island where I would not have to put up with such theatrics. Nonetheless, out of curiosity I turned around and what I saw left me with the same look that people have on their faces after they become naïve victims of a meticulously orchestrated prank on April Fools Day. I saw media persons with their paraphernalia covering the unfolding drama and it soon occurred to me that all this was a set up to create awareness about the evils of dowry.

After they were done, perhaps for the day, they distributed pamphlets which I didn’t care to read and threw it outside the window after having rolled it into a ball. The poor piece of paper bore the brunt of my frustration. I finally heaved a sigh of relief. As for the small group of college goers, they celebrated on having taken an entire busload of people for a ride. The jubilation was more about making us look like a bunch of fools than about the joy of having sent a message across. Meanwhile, a lovely smile surfaced on the face of the pretty girl which until now had been engulfed by a pall of gloom. She finally came out of her cocoon and broke into peals of laughter which made her look even prettier.

Many a times, I have tried to marshal the resources of my brain to recollect whether it was April 1st that day. If it was, it couldn’t have got better.