Short Story: The After-Office Bus by Tapti Bose

In this short story, Tapti Bose shares a moving tale about two people bumping into each other as strangers and sharing a deep conversation about their lives.

I practiced law, for over twenty years, and worked in several law firms, the longest time of about ten years in one firm in Dalhousie in Central Kolkata. Even though now I practice on my own often devoting a bit of time to writing as well, when I look back, I remember the bus that I boarded after office during that time almost every day. It was bus number M from Dalhousie to Behala where I resided and I still remember, the people that I encountered, whom I knew but yet did not know, a peculiarity of living in a city. My journey would be from BBD Bag, also known as Dalhousie Square, the center of the city, with the General Post Office and the Writers Building close by, to that part of the city that, even until the early eighties, was not a part of the city corporation.