My bus days. Back in 90’s it was different. (I feel like a veteran using the line “back in 90’s). It was red in color. As soon as I get in I flash my buspass to the conductor and hang on the footboard of the BTS buses(now they call it BMTC) along with my seniors school mates.
Things changed in college. By then the blue colored BMTC buses replaced the red ones and it had some kind of new engine fit into it to help rip on roads. I was vey fond of it. It had good pick and speed and whenever the driver applied brakes I used to do a little gymnastic and stuffs holding the pole. The power was such. In college, it was a shame if you voluntarily show your buspass to the conductor before he/she asks you to flash it. There were few conductors who used to scrutinize my buspass and try to find similarities between the stamp sized b/w computerized photo attached on it and my face. Well, there is a story behind it. When I went to get my buspass done, the officer never told me that he was going to take my photo, he just asked me to look at a webcam and before I was ready, he asked me to go to the next counter and collect my buspass. There was no second shot for me.
Sometimes I had to half-close my eyes and half-smile to prove that I am the one on my bus pass. And one day a conductor thought I was making faces at him and warned me.
(edited on Oct 12: I forgot to mention: While in a crowded BMTC bus or any city transport bus for that matter, just stay quite for 2 minutes and try to catch the conversations going on. Everyone talks simultaneously, few discuss about the govt., few about last night’s cricket match and the ultimate one or my favorite one is when people talk to their loved/non-loved ones on their cell phones. Listening to the one sided conversation is simply awesome and I must tell you it will make you creative. Next time you get a chance, try to envision things by listening to one sided conversations, but at the sametime don’t go naughty if you are in a bus)
The reason I am blogging about this is, I boarded 4 different buses today and few things that happened to me today made me nostalgic. Luckily it is a Sunday and the buses were not crowded.
“Sorry, I din’t mean to wake you” I said in English to a guy who looked like a fresh techie. He had his ID card exposed in a BMTC bus. This says, he is a fresher who just got his first job. The window seat was empty and I had to cross this techie to grab that place. Everyone loves window seats. I don’t know why he wasn’t interested in a window seat. I had a tough time to get past him to take my seat, coz he wasn’t interested on me taking the window seat either. It might also be because
1. I woke him from his sleep and he was too lazy to move
2. He had a laptop on his lap and that made my entrance very conjusted.
3. Maybe I was in a hurry to grab that window seat and that made him angry, so he stayed unmoved
I took my seat and smiled at him and ensured that he didn’t feel bad about my desire for window seats. And when everything went on as expected, I saw this written on the seat cover in front of me.
But again no blames on BMTC, they cannot do much to avoid such activities. I remember writing such things on our college’s rest room walls. But it wasn’t this filthy. We just used to draw our lecturer’s caricature and we used to make him wear shorts and sometimes shorter than shorts.
But jokes apart. A lot has changed about the BMTC services. Nowadays the buses are peppy and beautiful. We have the silver colored Suvarna, Red colored Vajra the volvo and the blue buses which has improved a lot in years. “If you come early,the bus is late and if you are late the bus already left” is no more a fact after the introduction of BIG10. Compared to other cities, I think BMTC buses are the least pollutants. The idea of having ads and awareness-bringing hoardings on buses are very innovative. They also have a website of their own, one can check the bus routes and contact their call center with queries. Just in case you need it http://www.bmtcinfo.com/english/index.htm
