“Hop on the Bus, God’s on the move, there’s a seat for you”… or at least you can stand on the stairs.
Two weeks ago I offically started VDS, a leadership training program. During the first week I wanted the students to experience Delhi so one day I planned a simple outing consisting of roaming around the old Lodi garden ruins and kicking around a football in the grass… but after getting down from the metro we were unable to get auto-rickshaws. Abel, one of the locals, was incharge of transportation because he knows how to get around. I suggested he look into the bus situation… he raised his eyebrows and ran across the street.
About ten minutes later he called us over. 
All of us crossed the four lane road to join the hundred plus people waiting at the stop. “We are looking for Bus # 417 Abel told me.” Just then a bus packed with people pulled in and out of the stop at an alarming fast pass. We jumbed back a few feet after seeing the number and hearing the driver’s assistant call out, in rapid sucession, all the stops that bus would make . A few minutes later Abel called from his place across the divide that our bus was coming. The bus pulled in and the men of our group pushed/helped the ladies board. They jumped on as we were pulling away. I wish I could describe the experience, but nothing would do it justice. We were packed standing in the ailes and after every stop someone would insist that we move further towards the front. I just kept laughing cause I didn’t know what else to do. The foreigners were not the only ones with wide eyes, some of the Indians in
our group had never been to a big city before.
After the bus we had to walk about a half a mile and I thought everyone was going to be mad at me for insisted we visit the garden, but as soon as we were in the park everyone was happy. We took off our shoes and walked through the grass. We kicked around the ball. I sat and watched the birds. It was divine. We rode auto-rickshaws back to the metro station.
