Personal space means one thing to us and something all together different to Indians. When I board a bus at home (San Francisco), I hope that the empty seat next to me stays empty. It’s not because I’m antisocial (no, no – of course not). It’s because I like my space, especially on public transportation. I’m sure we all feel that way. Right?

Anyway, knowing this about me, you can imagine how much patience – how many happy places – I need to find to travel on buses in India. I’ll give you an example. Today we took a public bus from the Kaziranga National Park to Tezpur, a short two hour ride. All the normal seats were full when we boarded, so we sat in the front with the driver – and four other people.

Before you start feeling bad for us (it’s not time for that yet), let me explain the lay-out of the driver’s area. The cab is divided into three sitting areas, built to seat three people, maybe four if they’re tiny. The driver occupies one area. The second area is a bench that lines the passenger-side door. The third is a platform that fills the space between these two.

OK – still with me? Good. Now, we climbed into this space and shared the door-bench with a man who was so thin I was afraid he’d drift away. So, no problem fitting the three of us on the door. There was a man squeezed behind the driver and the middle section had just one man on it and. So we were good, right?

Right!

For five minutes. Then, just when I start thinking we’ll ride in comfort, the bus pulls over  in the middle of nowhere to pick up another passenger. This is when our luck ran out. Into the drivers compartment rolled (how do I put this lightly?) a rotund man. The middle platform was now full of this man, some of which was drooping onto our knees.

Clearly he could feel us spearing his side – I checked and I could neither see my knee cap nor get a good estimate of how far it was into his side. Three inches is my best guess. Did this man adjust, wiggle or politely ask if we could move (though we quite literally could not)?

No. He actually leaned into us. Once to read the newspaper on the Thin Man’s lap and a second time to use our knees as some kind of messed up backrest.

How did the other man in the middle-bench react to such liberal use of personal space? Like a champ. He simply went from a sitting position to curling up into Martin’s lap to make a phone call. Never mind the invasion of my personal space. Life is good when your Scandinavian husband has an Indian man curled up in his lap.

***I have to apologize for the quality of the picture on this one. Its noteasy catching anything while drving in an Indian bus

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