No civic sense
Babor A Mir Assistant Commissioner (Land) Barisal Sadar, Barisal
After completing a month's training course on computer in Dhaka, I was mulling over coming back to my workplace at Meherpur. On the next day at 9.00am, I was waiting at a bus-stand along with all my paraphernalia in hand for a long time in a long queue for the arrival of the BRTC bus. At last when the bus arrived I noticed with all my consternation that the commuters who were not previously in the line managed tickets for themselves from the counter and boarded the bus leaving some of us behind.That was not the end of my astonishment, rather I had to wait for some more time on that day. Getting down from the BRTC bus at Gabtali, I needed to buy another ticket for a long journey to Meherpur. While I was advancing towards the ticket counter for purchasing a ticket, an unknown passenger from a standing bus spat in the air through the window which ultimately fell on my shirt. I looked upwards and stared at the man but he did not seem to be a little worried for his wrong deed. While buying the ticket I asked for the price of the ticket to the person selling it. He told me the price of the ticket and I just paid the demanded amount of money and then got on the bus. A fellow passenger then asked me how much money I had paid for the ticket. I showed him the ticket and he said that it had cost me Tk 50 more than the normal price. I wanted to know from the conductor why such price discrimination of ticket had been made by them. He suggested that I should talk to the bus owner to bring them to book. I was very much exhausted and so I felt drowsy and for some time looked blankly towards the sky for my sheer foolishness and was muttering some expletives to myself. Now the person who bought the ticket of my right seat came along with a friend of his and told me to leave the seat so that they could gossip together for they had met after a long time. The bus started for Meherpur half an hour later from its scheduled time. On the way the bus conductor was calling local passengers to get on the bus stopping it almost at every stoppage. All the way he was busy collecting as many passengers as he could. At times hassle was taking place between him and the passengers centring on the fare. Being exasperated at one time I called him and wanted to know why he was allowing local passengers in a long route transport. Making a gleaning face he told that the bus owner gave only a paltry amount to him as his salary by which he could hardly maintain his family. So he naively admitted that he had no other choice but to do it. After getting a plausible explanation from him I kept myself mum. The bus was plying as usual making regular halts at different stoppages. By that time the man sitting on my left brought out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and started puffing, emitting the smoke on me. What a disgusting nuisance!
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