from the commuter

The photos which I took myself are random images of commuting and life. Enjoy the ride!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

How do you keep your bus tickets?

Seeing the many tickets stuck in every known crevice of the bus, I know that bus has made its nth trip and has accommodated loads of passengers already. I, too, have somehow acquired that bad habit of sticking my bus ticket into any crack of the seat in front of me or of the window beside me. Everybody is doing it! I used to fold my ticket nicely and keep it inside my coin purse. In longer trips where tickets were inspected, I would slip the ticket nicely around my wrist watch. I was doing some good deed for mother earth by not being a litterbug, but the same cannot be said now. I was imbibing a commuting culture which I had initially deemed wrong. Can I be faulted for perpetuating a custom done by almost everyone?

Culture has given so many excuses for uniformity and social order. When the helmet law for motorcycle riders was enforced, our Indian brothers (Sikhs they were called I think) were exempted since they wore some kind of a turban, a religious accessory,  around their head. When all forms of motored vehicles were taxed and regulated, our kalesa had no regulating body to speak of. Since Filipinos have no notion of proper disembarkation, unconcerned police officers just let jeeps load and unload anywhere. Because corruption is the name of the game, we act oblivious to the transaction going on between the driver and the traffic enforcer.

Can there be an end to all the undesirable ways of the people if the people themselves seem to be tolerant of these ways? Can we completely blame culture?

It's good that I have not been taking buses lately.

2 comments:

  1. Your last line is a temporary escape, I say. (wink)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, Joni. That was what I had in mind. The question still remains unanswered....Sad.

    ReplyDelete

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