Under-graduating to Public Transport.

I had some work in the evening today, with regard to the NGO Mela (Fair) at college that I'm organizing with a few others. This place was about 4 kms from my house. Sunday evening - I could reach in 10 flat minutes. I took a bus, to and fro. Why am I writing about how I took a DTC, that many Delhi-ites take (almost) on a daily basis? 

The answer lies in why it's significant to the person I am right now. No, there is probably no deep meaning attached to how public transportation has made me the person I am right now. Or how it's changed my life. It's simply ... well, amusing. It may be even more amusing to my friends back home, the place where I grew up - Chandigarh. 

Background : Chandigarh is cute, charming, pampered, small, boring-after-a-point, supremely organized as a city. Pampered and small, however, are the two key words I shall be elaborate upon. 

Chandigarh has the highest per capita income in the country. It also has the largest number of vehicles per capita in India. Oh, talking about size, Chandigarh's total area is about 114 square kms, as compared to 1483 square kms which is the total area of Delhi. I think that could give you a little bit of perspective about how small it really is. 

So this is how I grew up in Chandigarh : Fortunately, by the time I was born, my parents owned a car - an Ambassador (given by the Office) at that! We also had Tarlok Uncle who joined a year or so after I was born, I think. Tarlok Uncle, by the way, was our driver in Chandigarh, almost through all the time that I have spent in Chandigarh. Anywhere I wanted to go, I was driven either by Uncle, Ma or Appa. If the distance was short and we were in the initial sectors of Chandigarh, we would take a cycle rickshaw. But opportunities for the same, for sitting on rickshaw in such a way that my feet were hanging out and I faced the other side and watch cars zoom past, were few. Throughout my stay in Chandigarh, every car we had was given to us by the Office, along with a driver. I think I hardly ever noticed public transportation i.e. CTU buses. As far as I knew, they were irrelevant to my existence. My mother grew up in Bombay and was used to catching Locals and BEST buses. My father often jokes about how my mother would run to catch the bus when they first moved to Chandigarh and he had to remind her that life in Chandigarh was not close to the fast paced life of a Bombay wali. My father grew up in Delhi and was used to running and catching buses as well. I wonder if that's what kept them fit - the whole running-after-a-bus routine. 

The first time I sat in a bus that was not my School bus was during a trip to Coimbatore. I was about 12 years old and very excited about the whole concept of taking a bus to go someplace. Fortunately for me, my first experience was quite pleasant. Hardly any body was on the bus and the whole pace, the whole rhythm in which we were traveling was ... laid back. It was calm and serene - plus, the weather in Coimbatore is insanely pleasant. 

Thrilled with that achievement, once we were back in Chandigarh, I convinced my mother about taking a bus from my aunt's place to our home. It was a direct bus that dropped us 5 minutes away from the gates of our apartments complex. Again, a very pleasant experience since hardly any one uses the bus over there. I had almost started to believe that bus travel would be as pleasant any where I went. 

Then, Delhi happened. 

Killer Blue Lines and DTCs. Wow. Whatte experience it has been. It took me about a year of living in Delhi to prepare myself mentally, to take a bus. The crowd. The boys/men who take it as their supreme duty to make you feel uncomfortable - be it by making you feel like they have X-Ray vision or by accidentally touching you - 'Maidum, itni bheed hai bus mein, galti se touch ho gaya' or lech-y men who sing cheap Bollywood songs - because sab chalta hai. Before the Metro connection the south to the north, I swear, the buses would be over crowded to the point of an illusion of people running with the bus. And ouch, the smell! Sweat. Just ... the crowd! C'mon, I spent the first 15 years of my life in a city where the density of population is roughly 2050 LESS than the density of population in Delhi. 

But over the last one year, having come to college, I have faced various stages of being broke. There have been days when my wallet is actually empty. Like, nothing. And on those days, if my beloved Metro does not connect me to places or if my Metro card also has nothing, I resort to taking a bus. This goes without saying that my chauffeur driven car isn't around all the time. Gone are the days when I'd emerge from any place and find Tarlok Uncle waiting. Now, I get to give Arif a call and ask if he'd be free to pick me up. Arif is our current driver.

About 2 weeks ago, I went to Chandigarh with my mother, for a day. We arrived on a Thursday night and intended to depart on Saturday morning. For the very first time in my life, I did not have any body to receive me at the Chandigarh Railway Station. It was unnatural. Like there was a part of me that I was separated from. My mother had decided that it was time we learnt the bus routes in and around Chandigarh - it's another issue that we don't live there anymore and have a greater need to learn routes back in Delhi. Our home in Chandigarh is actually at a place called Mohali - a satellite town on the Punjab border of Chandigarh (you might'v heard of the PCA Stadium at Mohali). It's something like Ghaziabad/NOIDA/Gurgaon/Faridabad  or even Dwarka for that matter, for Delhi-ites. The distance however is equal to that of Hauz Khas to Connaught Place - or even less. So, we waited for a bus that went somewhere close to Mohali and found one till ISBT Sector 43. We figured that it was just 8 PM and we would find a bus to our home, perhaps a direct one. As luck would have it, the last bus from ISBT-43 for Mohali left at 3.30 PM. Jai ho frequency. Then, of course, we spent some time haggling with Auto Walahs and managed to reach home. 

The next morning, we waited and waited at the stop 5 minutes from our house. We remembered this stop from 5 years ago when there was a bus that went direct to the other end of Chandigarh. It took about 10 minutes for the auto and cycle rickshaw walahs to get over the amusing site of two women waiting for a bus, before they told us that the route we had so fondly remembered in our hearts and minds, had in fact, in scrapped. We were told to go stand at a place farther away and wait for any bus that would take us to the 'city' - Chandigarh. We waited for about half an hour and finally got a bus to ISBT-43. Once we reached there, it felt like candy land. We were spoiled for choice with bus routes and bus types (A/C or non A/C). Ma and I separated ways. Such a clean bus. Such less people. No cheap songs or lech-y comments but a random 'Abey oye Harry! Saada staap aagiya.' Harry would have most likely been short for Harrviindder (numerology?) and the like. Or it could just have been Happy instead. When I reached my friends house, I couldn't stop gushing about how I made it all the way from my house to her's in Rs. 20. She was of course, amused - she usually drives to places as any normal person who grew up in Chandigarh would. 

15 year old me would have laughed at 19 year old me. Or, not believed what she would have seen.  

Note : Yeah yeah yeah. I know. I haven't posted at all in 3 months, almost. So bas jo bhi. You should have a look at the number of drafts in my blogger dashboard.

Note Number Do : I don't mean to criticize any one - people who drive cars to get from point A to point B or people who use only public transportation. For the ones with cars, you guys are fortunate - so, yey you! For the ones who use public transportation - you guys get to experience a city in a different manner - so, yey you!

Note Number Teen : Yahan tak padh paaye? Wao yaar. Clapping ho jaye. I haven't even started on my louu for the Metro and my experience in a Mumbai Local.