Incident on the Bus

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh,

Yesterday morning I was on the bus minding my own business, standing near the rear door awaiting my stop. A man who seemed to be around the age of 40 and decently dressed, boarded the bus and proceeded to come towards me. Once infront of me he declared loudly, "THIS IS MY SPOT, MOVE NOW", I replied, "There is plenty of room on the bus you can stand somewhere else". He responded aggressively with, "I SAID THIS IS MY SPOT, MOVE NOW". By now everyone on the bus was watching this drama unfold. I didn't mind, I had done nothing wrong, and had nothing to fear.I answered him, "I was here first I am not going to move, stand
somewhere else". He once again said, "I SAID MOVE NOW, THIS IS MY SPOT, MOVE". I responded to the man saying "Is this your bus to?". He was quite frustrated at this point and he came right upto me and crowded my space and turned his back to me, pretty much trying to push me away. I did not move. About five seconds later this man 'butt-checked' me quiet aggressively, my natural reaction was that I was going to punch him in the back of his head, but I restrained myself. I was not angry at this man, but he was starting to become an annoyance. By now everyone on the bus was watching the tamasha unfold from the corner of their eye. I did not like how the man had 'butt-checked' me but I decided im not going to start a fight just yet, I will wait for him to cross the line further.

I was still standing at the same spot and he was really close infront of me, in my personal space. Since he had purposely butt-checked me and caused a scene for no reason, I felt I could also say something to him. I quietly said in his ear, "I'm still in your spot" with a smile on my face. I said it a few more times and got no reaction from this man, he started to ignore me. Than my stop came and I left the bus.

This was a really weird situation for me. Upon reflection I can't understand whether this man was targetting me because of my distinct appearance and maybe he thought he could push me around or bully me (Which he wasn't able to do, and he eventually started ignoring me when i started speaking in his ear). Or if the man just had a screw loose in his head. Either way, I just thought I'd share this story with the readers of this blog.

I would be interested to hear how you would have handled this situation, and what you would have done differently.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

posted by Otpreka Singh @ 9:00 AM Comments: 17