School Van

Today morning, I was driving my scooter towards the office. Arriving at the Sardar Patel Road - Velachery Road junction, I encountered the usual peak hour traffic that occurs here. I moved towards the signal as much as I could, squeezing between the gaps, until there was no more place to go. I was now stationary behind a guy on his scooter. To his right stood a school van.

I slowly came to realize that the guy was playing and having fun with the kid sitting in the last seat of the van. The guy would put his hand into the van and poke the kid. The kid immediately tried to catch his hand, but would fail. The guy would take his hand out and laugh.
This continued for sometime until the car in front of the guy moved forward a little. The guy and me followed suit. Now I was alongside the kid.

The kid was quiet for sometime. Then an adult in the van(presumably his teacher) asked him something. The kid immediately pointed to me and began to complain. I, just to build up the fun, immediately brought a "Oops-I-have-been-caught-red-handed" expression on my face. The teacher laughed!!

The signal turned green. We continued our ways, until we came to the Anna University signal. By then, most of the kids at the back had climbed their seats and were viewing the traffic that followed the van. Most of them were making faces - grinning and showing their baby teeth and making naughty faces. Everyone behind the van were laughing - irrespective of who they were.

I found a gap between the vehicles, and moved forward. It was then that I realized that those behind the van could have moved too - but they didn't. They wanted to stay behind the van and watch these kids' antics.


What a way to start the day, I thought.