My Ticket to Compassion

First, I need to confess – I take a bus to work and I only have to take ONE bus. In other words, I am ‘chauffeured-driven’ to work by a fleet of red-and-white buses (mostly air-conditioned), attended by ‘land stewards’, double my age – that costs me RM147 per month.

Second, whenever you see some of these buses, you would wonder if they could be driven back and forth down KL-Kuala Selangor route from 5.30 am till 9.00 pm, every single day. God has mercy on this people, who work hard to fend for their beloved family. As much as I pity these uncles to handle these old ‘sardine cans’, I was astounded to find out that they would rather drive these old buses. The buses are so old, whenever it throttled, you would pray hard that the bolts and nuts remain intact.

Third, Selangor Omnibus Co. manages these buses – I think the oldest transportation company in Malaysia as this year, it will turn 72 years old. I found an article published in 2007 about what these buses mean to the passengers, including yours truly, here. They have a picture of Mr Prakash, Medan Pasar station master who would share stories about his daughters and his failing health on our way back home, and Mr. Ang, a stern looking man but would smile whenever I flash my pass as he can rest his callous, tired fingers.

I hope RapidKL can learn a thing or two from this company and its people. Yes, RapidKL has the best fleet of buses, driven by uniformed drivers (but as usual, looks can be deceiving), I bet they can’t even come close to my Selangor Omnibus Co. in terms of service standard.

I take the bus as early as 6 am (so i could avoid the maddening traffic and starts work with a smile) and get down around 8.30 pm, every working day . There are days when I had to stay back (due to works or attending to my counterpart from some other part of the world a.k.a dinner appointment) and took a bus back around 12 midnight. Thanks for your concern, I am blessed with reliable drivers and ticket masters –they even treated me like I’m like one of their daughters or sisters – I feel secured with them. What scares me most is actually the nut-case passengers. Even then, I have my saviours – other male passengers (routines seals our silent, simple friendship), who would offer their seat, so I could avoid such horrendous experience for an hour or more. God bless them always.

My God, they have done a lot to me and that made me thinking - is it worth their pay, time and concern to do that when I pay a meagre RM147 a month? It must be their compassion. It must be their humanity that cut across any religion and racial barriers. They touch my soul.

They might not be educated. But then, what good education is if the educated ones keep trampling our rights for their self-preservation? They earn too low a pay yet they do it anyway, with pride and responsibility.

This post is for them for I got My Ticket to Compassion and that's priceless because - could you put a price to a smile? So, when was the last time you practised your compassion?