I remember the 1st day and the bus ride back to college from the Centre-ville of the town, i encountered three old ladies in the bus. they were Grandmothers to be precise and major part of their lives must have gone in taking care of their husbands and their children but now they had the time to enjoy their life and go to swanky restaurants and dine their hearts out with the delicious food not being concerned about the curfew time.
They entered the bus with an air of elegance and one could say that they were from an aristocratic lineage and it was their necessity to travel with the common man that they had an air about. well-tailored dresses, manicured hands and painted nails and the ring finger still adorned with the marriage ring that their husbands must have given to them at least 50years back as a token of their love towards them. the rings glittering in their hands in the rays of the sun that were filtering through the windows of the bus.
though the day was warm they had adorned their necks with scarves and their dresses with overcoats of expensive wool and it was matching with the stereotypical Madam:) there was a lady who had a dog and was holding it to her heart as if she would lose her life if she would leave it. they saw all the commoners in the bus but occupied the last seat though the bus was empty. they wanted to be seated in a much higher position than the commoners.
the aristocracy of the French ladies is very well seen in the way they talk, the poise that are seated in and even the way they swear about or bitch about their husbands, their daughter-in-law and the younger generation. but they never commented about their children or grand-children and that was quite surprising to know.
The general topics of discussion were their previous doctor's appointment, the way the bus-driver was driving the bus and the weather and it was insightful to know about the way they were predicting the weather for the next few days. old ladies are like kids and they really do not care about what the world thinks about them, they just talk and talk and talk not concerned about whether the people might be listening or the bus driver may also be listening, they just chatter away to glory and it was a non-stop entertainment for the fellow passengers or commoners to be more precise.the group was a very jovial one and were cracking jokes on all of us and it was funny enough to laugh at them.
the dog was also the part of the whole group. in the time that the ladies were talking, the dog jumped out of the owner's hand was roaming about in the bus thinking about that he was free from the clutches of his mistress, one old man tried to catch old of the dog and give it back to the owner but she silenced him saying that she had well-trained the dog to come back to its right owner and the old man was really offended and started shouting rudely to everyone who entered the bus and it was a very welcoming sight indeed of an old man shouting on all the passengers who wanted to entered the bus.
one of the ladies was of the silent type and the checker of the minute details of the travel namely the time, the destination and she had written everything down on a piece of paper about their alighting stop. since these ladies were engrossed in talking that they had forgotten about their destination and they hurried to the exit door and requested the bus-driver to stop the bus and he did so without taking into the bad things that they had said about him sitting in the back.
I noticed one thing about the ladies that they all went in different directions the moment they got down the bus. at the end of the journey as i was getting down at the last stop, i decided to inquire about the ladies to the bus driver and he had a great story to confess into me. he said that these ladies always travel in the same bus at the same time and have been doing so for the past 15years and they do it every single day and all the drivers know them very well as they have been very regular but they do not remember any bus-drivers but they remember to meet each other at the same time because they were sisters and they have an invisible bond with each other and that bond makes them meet everyday irrespective of the weather.i inquired about the parting of directions to the driver and he said that the husbands of the three ladies were arch enemies of each other and they would not like them to meet each other irrespective of them being sisters.
this confession actually appalled me but the admirable quality of sisterhood and the bond that ladies share was truly worth cherishing and really hats-off to the ladies, they have taught me the true essence of blood relations and as the thought goes that "Blood is thicker than water" has proven the statement clearly in the relation of these three Madams who meet everyday and forget about their daily schedules to spend time with each other and talk their life happenings was truly an experience to cherish for me!
