The beyond of nowhere - Part II

Let's talk about buses. Public transport buses, I mean. And more particularly, Mumbai's abundance of them, and Vasai's desperate shortage in that department. Much like the dabbawalas, Mumbai loves its BEST buses. The fare is cheap, the buses are usually on time and besides, they arrive at regular intervals. And they are also a very good way to beat the crowds in the local trains. Vasai has no public transport buses. Not any that I know of. I think I spied a few State-run buses that connect remote towns and villages to Vasai (which is a remote village in itself), but none of the BEST kind. Besides, most Vasaikars seem to have only one destination in mind : Vasai station. Which is why there are a few private operators that ply buses between the station and the residential areas, but the services they run aren't as dependable as those run by BEST. I mean, for one, these people operate purely for profit. That means, they'll wait till the buses are fully occupied before they consider making a move. Even if these buses claim to operate on some kind of schedule, these schedules are often flexible; the buses will not move till the driver is satisfied that he'll be able to collect enough fare to justify the trip.

Buses remind me : its been quite some time since I taveled in one. Earlier, travel by public transport was inevitable. I lived in one end of Mumbai, my workplace was in the other end. So that entailed travel by train as well as by bus. But ever since I moved to an office closer home, I have been ricking it up to work. And the trip back home is made by car, arranged by the company of course. So it was like a ride down memory lane for me as I boarded the bus this morning, on way way home from Borivli station. And I know this is going to be a little hard to believe, but people who know me well will tell you that such sort of behaviour is pretty typical of me : I happened to park myself on the disabled-persons seat at the front of the bus, which is close to the driver's seat. And as we approached the W.E. highway, out of sheer force of habit, I blurted out 'yahaan pe right lena'. The driver looked at me, bewildered. I almost died of embarassment. I had grown so used to giving directions to rickshaw drivers, that I had forgotten there was no need to do it in a bus.

And as I was trying to hide my embarassment by looking out of the window, pretending nothing had happened, I spied one of those ugly BMC trucks, the olive-green ones that they use to empty garbage cans and cart away rubbish to some dumping ground outside the city. There were a couple of BMC workers supervising the entire operation, and they had worn green surgical maks to protect them from the stench. And I remembered what a colleague from my previous workplace had told me : on our way to Churchgate station from work, we had come across a similar garbage-disposal operation. And she had told me that most of the BMC workers liked to drink hard liquor before any such work. The stench could become unbearable at times, and the liquor ensured that they were too intoxicated to notice. I guess that that would make it the only job where workers were encouraged to come to work all sozzled. Which, incidentally reminds me of something I had once read on a colleague's tee-shirt (it was one of those one-liners that the 'tantra' culture made popular) : I started working only when my employers threatened to fire me. hee hee.