Rush hour!

Did u see that when we are waiting for some transportation or for someone, we tend to observe a lot of what is going around? We think about all the people standing with us. Who are they ? where are they going? Which bus are they going to take?

Fleeting thoughts, unless for some later interrogation in some serious cop business, we usually leave them at that busstop and may never recollect it again. For those few moments we are a part of their lives - of all those people who are with us and they of ours.

Then in this tranquility of thoughts we see one person who comes in with some lightening speed - a lady with a kid and a huge bag running out of breath, a well dressed young man in formals goes past you before you can blink, a young student who rushes past you while balancing some books in her arms etc.

These are people who are trying to make it into that waiting bus which is there only because the lights are still red or the metro train has one door stuck or may be just a regular bus and they have be some place and dont want to miss this bus/train.

It is amazing how every time these people can create an adrenalin rush into every person  waiting in the bus stop, on either sides of the station platforms, even the guy eating at the deli across the street. Everyone stops their breath till these people make it. When they make it we are involuntarily smile, when they cant we look at them with some amount of sadness and stop ourselves short of rubbing their back and expressing our solidarity. We even forget to close our mouth while in the middle of that scene and realise that should close it after the scene finishes preferably with a favorable ending.

Sometimes we even step up and help the lady with her pram or bulging bags or wave and try to catch  the driver's attention  towards that person who is rushing.

Often I have been in that race to the finish line and never fail to wonder at the big smile on the face of the driver or that old lady or any of those others who watch you trying to get in. and you make it. In that second, we create a beautiful family of concerned people and well wishers around you who without any thought or malice want  you to win the race and sometimes help you too. They are not even waiting for a thank you because they know after you get in they will never see you.

I cant think of any other utterly selfless gesture where we involuntarily wish that a stranger gets what they are aiming for though we have absolutely no gain in it.