Posted by Palak on
June 8, 2008
The ‘BEST’ ride ever
Have any of you guys experienced a bus ride in ‘Mumbai’ atleast once? I guess once is not enough, every time I travel in a bus is a whole new experience. In Mumbai the buses which are the easiest and cheapest way to travel through long distances is owned and operated by The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking. The service called BEST Sure there can be a debate over the local trains versus the buses, but humans can travel through buses.
When you board a bus the T.C. (Ticket Conductor) usually asks where you’re headed, however most of them don’t bother even to ask that and you have to call him. Mind you, ticket conductors here are hotheads. When a passenger who is even willing to purchase a ticket doesn’t because the T.C. doesn’t bother, the T.C. grumbles “In logon ko toh conductor onke saamne khada chahiye” and here I do blame them. You guys (guys = T.C.s’ ofcourse!) are the T.C. Ticket Conductors for the love of God, the passenger couldn’t care less, he’ll be happy to save his money. Alright if some even dares to ask for the ticket, they start grumbling for change. If you have no change (which is mostly the case) then either he’ll ask for a rupee or so more or he’ll threaten you! Threaten being the keyword here, threaten you in the sense not kill you but threaten you that either he’ll give the change back if he gets some change from other passengers or he’ll say “Tikat pe likh ke denga” I haven’t interpreted that sentence well as yet but probably he means that the next time I travel I’ll just have to show that ticket, and I would have to just pay the difference if any. Yeah right it’s normal to just keep a small piece of paper safe, and what if I want that change now? What if I wanted to smoke ‘beedi’? Should I show that ticket to the beediwalla too? Is it the new Rupee?
Coming to the bus drivers I must say they are “hotterheads” as compared to the T.C.s and are more prone to get involved in conflicts. And here is a hilarious thing bus driver and T.C.s relationship is like a husband- wife’s because most of the times when drivers are involves in a conflict T.C.s play the wife’s part and cool down the driver. They also yell at the person who was involved in the conflict with the driver.
Bus drivers can be of two kinds - “Wildcats Or Jackass”. Oh, I forgot to mention one thing which is universal amongst the two is either they are colorblind or there is no such thing as “traffic signals” in their dictionary. Wait do they have a dictionary? Do they know what is it? Questions are arising, when are we gonna get the answers? Sorry India TV distracted me. Anyway back to the point, both of them are ready to pounce on any one abusing or even kindly blaming em’ for their mistake or asking them to apologize.
Moving on with the classification the “Wildcat” breed are the ones who don’t care whose on the street and you just need to sit back people and enjoy the ‘fright’. One good thing is that you literally zoom to your destination.
The Jackass breed, on the other hand, are the ones who know velocity to some extent but blank w.r.t. acceleration. You feel like getting down and pushing the bus even though knowing that you can’t. (At this time I wish that some lame-ass superhero would save the day) And then people start grumbling “Yeh kya bail-gaddi chala raha hai?” Unfortunately you can’t choose as such any one of the breeds. Even though they should paint the buses in different colors, black and white or something. You just have to pray that the driver you get is comparatively normal and of a good breed. I don’t get it why employ ‘hotheads’ & ‘wildcats’ to operate a mode of Public transport? Maybe because the government has a secret service which wants to reduce the population of India and then it can give ‘Roti, Kapda Makaan’ officaly to everyone.
YOUR EXPERIENCE MIGHT BE WORSE!
Credits : Written by Palak | Edited/Title-given by Jayesh.
