Bus off !!

Bus - this multi tyred man made moving machine has played a major role in my commutation life. Right from the last year of my school life till the time corona made a grand entry into our lives, buses had been the de facto mode of transport for me. The very first time i travelled alone in a bus was during my twelth standard, from my place to Royapettah. The thing about 21 series is that it goes all the way to central which means, rather than getting down, people keep boarding the bus at every stop. It was a lucky design that the bus makers decided to have a seat for the drivers. Else 21 bus drivers would've had to manage the driving by sitting on the steering wheel!!! 

There are several key criteria for being the conductor of 21, primary one being that he should be insulated from every sensory neuron in his body and waist should be less than size zero, for he has to squeeze in between 50 different tummy sizes. He should have the mental processing capacity of a gigahertz processor, ability to handle cash and coin several times quicker than the quickest cashier of any bank and above all the suer power to walk only on the toes of fellow passengers while balancing self on a swerving bus. Some clever ones will use the stage as a pretext to not just catch their breath but also in wonderment of any of the passengers leaving the bus out of sheer frustration, having to stand alongside several dozen more saga prayaanis in sweltering heat and soaking sweat. But most of the times, the crowd only increased with people seemingly board the bus more than any stopping. My school stopping was, Aneez book center, named after the book shop behind that bus shelter. I used to wonder why they have named it such, for the shop was right at the entrance of a street. Shouldn't it have been book corner rather? Anyways, if the conductor kept a stage, then the immediate next stopping would be skipped is their unwritten law. At times, even though it may be 200m away, he would still double whistle the stopping away. The problem was not the distance alone, but the next stopping being Royapettah hospital, getting out the bus would be no less a feat that boarding a mumbai local at peak rush time and even if you do manage to get out like a sugarcane from its crusher, crossing that signal, reaching the other side of the road and eventually managing to go to school on time would put any ironman competition to shame!!

It has been a really long while since i saw the series plying and with all the roads in and around my area being dug up for metro, our area has become a waterless island, land locked literally with all the land to and fro being locked and dug away. The other bus that i have "fond" memories of would be 41D for without it my PG degree would've been incomplete. I would board the depot at mandaveli and if i don't manage to find a seat, i would simply wait for the next bus howmuch ever late it may start, for if you don't get a seat at the depot itself, chances are there that you would never get one till you get down. It is not just numerically double that of 21 series, but in crowd as well. It commuted from Mandaveli to Anna nagar where we had our PCP center and such was the route of this bus that, it always added more people at every stop with no one ever getting down. May be everyone who boarded the bus wanted to get down only at Anna nagar and we would all be plastered within the narrow confines of that metal body like rust pieces in a magnet. It would take solid 2 plus hours for that bus to reach anywhere near Anna nagar and i would prepare for my exam only during this commute. At least half of the chapters i would study only during the bus ride and despite the cauldron of a commute, the travel helped me to clear my exams!!! 

When i started my career, there was one another notorious bus by the name 21G. Such was my travails with that bus that, for a brief period of time, like TN weatherman, i became the unofficial traffic weatherman of mandaveli - guindy area!!! Kotturpuram-IIT signal is world famous and would've curled Einstein's hairstyle even further with its ability to stop time!!! That signal has created a parallel dimension where it hosted time-space continuum as an alternate reality. No one would knew why they were standing, but anyone owning any vehicle felt that unless they didn't spend half hour at that signal blocking fellow vehicles from moving, jenma saabalyam will not be attained. At times, right near the flyover the traffic build up will begin and by the time we even reach the signal, you would've aged a couple of years mentally!!! Crossing over the pallavaram junction and finally managing to reach chrompet means, your day has well and truly begun. When i step out of the bus to reach my office entrance, which was like another 2 km walk inside that campus, i often felt that my is done and had my house been anywhere near, would've happily taken the day off and went back home to sleep. But considering the ordeal of repeating the same 2 hour journey back in the same bus was the only deterrent that made me stay in the job!!!

One day, i wish, the drone tech would grow so big that, we can be airlifted and dropped at our place of choice, like Ubder/ola. Appovum edachum overhead cable wirela stuck aagi late aagi, atha pathi polambi innoru Ramayanam post potutruppennu i the think!! hmmmm......