Ghulam Muhammed I am carrying my impression of the extreme patience that British people displayed one evening in Sheffield city center Bus line, some 40 years back. The driver who doubled as ticket seller, got his ticket dispenser stuck. The time was evening and the line stretched to over two blocks. Mothers with children and infants stoically waited and waitedwhile the driver was trying to fix the machine. It took him about half an hour to fix the machine. Each minute of that half an hour I was holding my breath, expecting the waiting crowd to explode. It did not. I compared the situation with what we can expect in India. A second's delay, in traffic or in queue and the whole crowd will howl and curse. That scene got superimposed by a driver parking his bus and praying in the aisle. I am not sure how the people in the bus had behaved. Whether they shouted at him, or just stoically endured the ordeal in silence or appreciated his dedication to his calling. But the shriek that I hear around the cyber-world is more India and less British. Probably, the driver found people's tacit toleration of things 'mundane' encouraging him to call on them to 'join' in his prayers.
