PUBLIC TRANSPORT PERSONAS: WHO WE BECOME INSIDE A MICROBUS

There is a quiet theater that unfolds every day on the roads of Nepal, staged not in auditoriums but inside the tightly packed, ever-rattling microbuses that zip and zigzag through our cities. Here, in this moving capsule of chaos, dust, and shared breath, people assume roles they didn’t audition for. They don’t speak much, but they perform. Each microbus is a small society—and every passenger, an actor negotiating their place in it.

The moment we step in, we shed part of who we are outside. The loud becomes restrained. The carefree becomes cautious. The confident student with headphones transforms into someone suddenly obsessed with finding the right amount of knee-space. A mother becomes a protector, shielding her child from elbows and sudden brakes. A man in a crisp office shirt tucks in his ego to fit between two strangers.

We become versions of ourselves edited for proximity.

There is the Silent Negotiator—the one who won’t ask for the window seat but will quietly hover in ways that hint they want it. They don’t speak, but their body language lobbies persistently. Then there’s the Seat Guard, who strategically places a bag to suggest a seat is taken, until the conductor barks, and the performance collapses.

We all know the Exact Change Philosopher—someone who treats the act of handing over a ten-rupee note like a sacred calculation. Their role is to stretch time, hunting coins in deep pockets as if saving the economy. Behind them, someone plays the Unwilling Acrobat, balancing themselves mid-air, one foot bent, neck bent lower, waiting for a seat while trying not to breathe on anyone.

Some adopt the Invisibility Cloak, especially when an elderly person or pregnant woman enters. Eyes are glued to the phone or the passing scenery. The weight of social obligation rests heavily on the neck—but still, no eye contact. If you can’t see the need, you don’t have to give up your seat. The role depends on practiced detachment.

Others take on more assertive roles: the Route Expert who corrects the driver’s decision to take a shortcut, or the Mini-Parent, gently reminding teenagers to sit properly or school children to move back. And then, there’s the Ghost of Microbuses Past, the one who sighs dramatically, complains about today’s youth, the fare, the roads, the heat, and the way things used to be better when microbuses weren’t this crowded.

What’s remarkable is how quickly we adapt. Strangers pack themselves into narrow spaces, shoulder to shoulder, breath to breath, and yet maintain invisible boundaries. We angle our knees away from each other, protect our bags like secrets, and share warmth while avoiding intimacy. A microbus teaches you how to coexist intensely while saying almost nothing.

And yet, small kindnesses bloom in these tight corners—a child passed gently hand to hand toward a mother already seated; a stranger catching someone’s falling bag mid-brake; the silent offer of a lap for an old woman’s shopping bag. These gestures are not theatrical. They are instinctive. The roles we play are not all evasive—many are generous, too.

Inside a microbus, people become both less and more than themselves. The personal becomes compressed, the public exaggerated. We shrink physically, but grow socially, adjusting, accommodating, enduring. The masks we wear here are not false—they are simply the tools we use to get through fifteen minutes of closeness with people we will never meet again.

And when we step off—shoulders aching, shirt creased—we return to who we were. But for those few stops, for that winding ride, we were part of something else: a living, breathing stage of silent negotiation, small compromises, and fleeting community.

Tomorrow, we’ll board again. And once more, without being told, we’ll slip into our microbus selves.