ab bus kar yaar...!

Almost every Indian city has a
form of public transport that gets
romanticised and gets written
about in various travel guides as
a must-do thing. Calcutta has its
trams and hand-pulled rickshaws
(until not too long ago). Bombay
has its crowded local trains.
Chennai has its auto-rickshaws,
where economists are still trying
to figure out how the pricing
model works. Delhi has the BMWs
that belong to some minister’s
son. But Bangalore has none of
that. No trams, no hand-pulled
rickshaws, or cycle rickshaws
even. No local trains, unless you
are talking to clever college
students who have worked out
that if they know their train
timings well, they can do City-KR
Puram much faster by a train
heading to Tamil Nadu than by
any other means. And for free,
too! Of course, eerie looking
cement pylons that have replaced
the rain trees in Bangalore
threaten to bring in a Metro train
revolution, but I will not believe it
until I actually see a train run on
one of those knives-and-forks
arrangements.
But those travel-writer hacks do
not know everything, do they?
Bangalore ’s public transport bus
service is one of its best kept
secrets (keeping a public service
secret kind of defeats the
purpose, but what to do?) BMTC
(There are some who still prefer
to call it BTS, but that brings to
mind images of fiery red cuboids
of death and so I will stick to
calling it BMTC.) It is only of late
that BMTC is trying to let people
know that they exist, and that
people should be using their
buses. Today, the 6th of July is
the 6th edition of ‘Bus Day’, a
once-a-month initiative where
people are goaded to travel in
the comfort of the numerous
Volvo buses that BMTC operates.
For most people, it is these Volvo
buses that define Bangalore ’s
bus services. Especially the ones
who cannot read Kannada, they
become selectively blind to all
buses that do not have a
scrolling digital marquee of
names ITPL, Electronic City,
Koramangala, etc on their
number-boards. They do not
know what they are missing out
on. In Bangalore, given its ever-
temperate weather, sitting in an
AC bus with tinted windows can
never be the optimal way to take
in the sights, smells and sounds
of the city.
So here’s a simple 2-step plan for
all of them (it will work just as
well for the others, the ones who
already know Bangalore well too)
. Do it on a lazy weekend, you will
enjoy it –
Step 1 – Find out if you stay
within Bangalore city as defined
by BMTC (well, BTS actually).
Here ’s how you do it – walk to
the nearest bus stop from
wherever you are staying. (If you
do not have a bus stop less than
500 meters from where you stay,
you are definitely outside
Bangalore city limits, you can skip
to Step 2 directly). Once there,
wait for an hour and observe all
the buses that pass by. If you
spot any bus numbered less than
or equal to 200 (buses with any
prefix, say K, MBS, TR, etc, are
disqualified), then
congratulations, you are inside
city limits. If all the buses are
numbered 210 and above, you
are in what the BMTC calls the
mofussil. Don ’t get too
disheartened, it is not all that
bad.
Step 2 – If you found yourself to
be inside the city in Step 1, just
get into any bus and ask for ‘last
stop’. You will either end up at
one of BMTC’s hubs (Majestic,
Market, Shivajinagar) or you
won’t. In case of the former, just
catch any bus that is numbered
less than 200 (except 129 and
150 – those are hub-to-hub).
Otherwise, walk around, eat a
Masala Dosa at a Darshini, have a
strong coffee at another, and
either get back to the bus stop
you disembarked at, or any other
bus stop that you spot nearby.
Repeat the process until you
want to call it a day.
If you found yourself outside the
city in Step 1, just be more
careful that your first step takes
you to one of the hubs. If you
have lots of time, it doesn ’t really
matter, but I would not want you
to dismiss Bangalore as an
agrarian economy after ending
up at Hesaraghatta, or Budigere,
so it is better you try to reach
either of Majestic, Market or
Shivajinagar.
I’m sure the wise ones among
you might have noticed that this
2-step process makes no
mention of completing the loop
by getting back home. It is
intentional. By the end of your
bus-hopping day, if you are
resourceful enough, you would
have figured out how to.
I am sure you can do something
on these lines in every big city in
India. I have done it in Bombay
and Madras – they were not as
enjoyable as the Bangalore bus-
rides were, but there is no better
way to ‘learn’ a city. Or surprise a
local in conversation. Well, happy
bus-hopping!