Kerala School Buses and The Purbeck Breezer ...

I was always wary of the buses in Kerala - I might be walking down a narrow jungly lane, passing through its silent steamy air like a dreamy ghost, when suddenly, with a crashing of sluggish gears, a growling angry engine, a luminescent bus would storm past me, dizzying me with its cloak of diesel fumes -

I would be lolling in a Toyota, imagining delightful scenes, when suddenly I'd look up, to see a gaudy deity, painted upon the rear end of a bus, inches away from our bumper - the bus was stopping without warning, perhaps a perfunctory blast on a horn, its two doors thrown open, so its dazed passengers could tumble out - 

School buses were the craziest of all the buses, I thought - they raced past sequestered temples, with a holy tree set in a marshy field, guarded by egrets - they steamed through the disordered traffic of the towns, filled with bright eyed pupils - 

I would cast my mind  back, to gentle Wareham, to the well mannered Purbeck Breezer, carrying gaffers to Bramble Bay - 

I was surprised not to feel homesick - perhaps I should spend my final years, barefoot and sun burnt, idling under tolerant skies -