Every BMTC ride ever
Every BMTC ride ever
Everybody loves traveling. Even if it's not something a person frequently does, he/she puts it up on their list of hobbies to sound cool. I also called traveling a hobby when all I did was wear fancy boxers and ride my bicycle down lanes, making a few people think that I sell newspapers in the street. But honestly, traveling is fun. Unless you are standing between a few stinky-hairy, never-taken-bath uncles or aunties, in a bumpy BMTC bus ride. Still, public transport buses are always memorable. Every ride etches a beautiful memory in your brain or a filthy scar on your body.
The struggles of catching a BMTC bus is real. You can feel the refreshing emotion when you see an empty bus riding towards you but you realize that it doesn't go to your destination. After that, climbing a bus is a real skill. People walk in and out at the same time. If you try to make the line, people are going to push you back to the bus stop and laugh at your IQ as they climb into the bus. There are a few more people who traditionally have chosen the divine path of climbing onto a bus only when they can experience relative velocity. Even if the bus is empty, they wait for it to move and then they jump in. After climbing into the bus, Y'all know that the door gets manually closed. If you are between the doors when it closes, you get bisected. Never try that stunt. After entering the bus, you find this mysterious person called a conductor. Clad in a brown dress and covered with the DNA of passengers, he walks linearly from one end to the other. A cheap ball pen gripping above one ear, a ticket machine hanging around the neck and cash notes folded and placed between fingers like the blades of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman feels).
As you find your way into the bus, the conductor identifies you and asks for the pass or the money for a ticket. I personally haven't owned a bus pass, so I don't know the emotion while showing the bus pass to the conductor. A ticket is something a conductor wants to provide. Like just take it and go to hell. You tell him your destination, he types something in his machine and magically a ticket takes birth with a creaky sound. Now the struggle is the change. If you hand him a 100/500/2000 rupee note, he will first abuse you for not carrying change, then he will write down the change amount behind your ticket. Later he will go hide in some corner of the bus and act like he has never seen you in his life. The whole process of receiving the change will completely change your life. A bus is but a rehabilitation center.
Then comes the main part - the journey. Bengaluru roads are designed to make your bus journey adventurous. I think this is what happened. After the Karnataka government dug up all the roads and made unnecessary speed-breakers, they weren't satisfied with the minor impacts caused to people in small vehicles like autos and cars, so they introduced 'BMTC buses'. Like come on, let's get some people to experience slip disks.
Every bus driver is a Fast and Furious and every passenger is a Mission Impossible.
While the bus moves, you could hit a window, jump on someone, let inertia play with you or even experience a cardiac arrest with nobody around to give a fuck. It is not even a clean place to die. If you ever try to take a look at the lower surface of the seat you would find enough chewing gums to feed a third world country. All seats look like they got smallpox on their rears. Apart from that, you will find so many things near your feet sometimes I go like,"Oh does this thing even exist", or like "cheee.."(Discovery channel feels)
BMTC buses are usually covered with advertisements on the outside, to restrict your view of the surroundings. It is usually an ad featuring Peirce Brosnan holding a Pan Bahar or Upendra muscularly gripping an SK super TMT steel bar. Both men holding something they would never use in their daily lives. Just imagine Peirce Brosnan spitting pan near Statue of liberty or Upendra using the steel rod to... *wink* *wink*
The other main highlight of the BMTC bus is the people. There is a sense of unity among the passengers because they know that if the bus crashes, everyone is going to die at the same time. Every time the bus jumps, some of the other uncles start yelling, "Yennappa driver kudh bandna enu?", "Bengaluru roads are all breaking and gornmint is sleeping","Sidarammaiah na hakond patta patta antha odibuku angey" etc.
A few buses have this generic voice inputs which indicate your location in the journey. It is the woman who says it first "Mundina nildana ..." (Kannada) and the next voice is that of a man who says " The neksht shtoup is ... "(English). It just proves that men are so desperate to repeat a woman, but wouldn't ever do it in the same language. Never.
Apart from the regular BMTC buses, we have the other overprices buses called the "Volvo buses".
Its basically for those people who want to travel in peace and can afford to pay extra for the same ride. But no matter how tall you grow, your feet are still gonna touch the ground. Similarly, whichever bus you climb, you still are going to ride on the same shitty roads.
Getting down. Trust me, it's emotional. The moment when you see your destination coming near, I mean the bus going near to your destination (I always make this mistake dammit). You get off your difficultly achieved seat and walk slowly towards the door, time starts to run slowly you turn back dramatically to look back at all those people who shared this journey and who owe you no fucks. Those coordinated jumps at the road-hump and the 'aaahh's and 'ooooh's you'all screamed in unison (It sounds wrong I know). Yes, it is emotional. Very emotional. Especially when you have forgotten to collect the change.
- Govardhan
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If you ever experienced something very interesting in a BMTC or any public transport bus, feel free to leave it below in the comment box.
