Kings and commoners

Kings and commoners

Can the plush comfort of a Volvo bus compensate for the high drama aboard good ol' BTS?

The Hindu

I've been on the lookout for the Swedish red elephant but its path hasn't crossed mine so far. They tentatively let loose a lone tusker in the city streets (to the sound of much media-trumpeting) and if the experiment proves successful they might release a whole herd. That expensive creature called the Volvo bus, hitherto a long-distance traveller, now plies in the city.

First of all they've simply got to give it another name. When the common man mispronounces it, as he's bound to, it could end up sounding like a sensitive part of the female anatomy. I'm sure I can trust the BMTC, which is abundantly inventive when it comes to christening the models that emerge from its stables, to come up with a smashing title. If they can think up Pushpak and Janapriya Vahini, there's no reason why the Volvo Local couldn't be called the Lokapriya Vahini or something equally grand.

Actually we don't need to worry about the common man's mispronunciation because the common man isn't going to use the bus at all. The gorgeous gaadi, with fares in multiples of Rs. 10, is expected to tempt upper-middle-class commuters into divorcing their cars. Techies are its initial target; the routes speak for themselves: Majestic to Electronic City, and later, to ITPL. Not City Market to N.R. Colony, oh no. Should it ply routes favoured by the common man it would get stuck like any old bus in peak hour traffic. Elephants can't fly.

Anyway, red elephants don't interest me. The princely howdah would isolate me from my familiar travelling companions. You won't find vendors and tradesmen in air-conditioned foreign buses. You won't stumble over large sacks of soppu and sevanthige. You won't hear government school girls chatting with driver-uncle. And you won't come across scenes such as the ones I'm about to describe.

I am sitting in a bus that slows down near a stop when a scooterist cuts across its path and blocks it. He is furious. A passenger has spat paan on his shirt. "Who did this?" he demands repeatedly. Nobody owns up. The driver is full of sympathy. He tells a commuter: "Paapa, he was going to office, now he will have to go back home." And then he puts his finger on the crux of the problem: "These people don't even look before they spit. Nod-kondu ugi beku, alva? They should look and then spit."

I am sitting next to a soppu-seller and a passenger turns customer. She buys a sizeable bunch of drumstick leaves for Rs 5. The vendor has no plastic covers, so the woman is left holding the foliage rather awkwardly. I gallantly offer her a plastic bag. It is entirely another matter that said bag is in a beggarly condition. It looks so shabby, in fact, that my neighbourhood bakery owner keeps asking me when I'm going to throw it away. But that doesn't matter to the leaf-buyer who accepts it with many expressions of profound gratitude.

I am sitting in a bus bound for City Market when the familiar "hello, hello" of a cell-phone user booms in my ear. It is Lokesh the watch shop owner trying to establish contact with Gowda the onion-seller. Lokesh is a burly character who looks as though he needs no invitation to pick up a fight. But at the moment he is a mere kitten. He's calling the number of a shop in Gowda's vicinity. "You know that Gowda who sells irulli next to the seth's angdi, will you call him? Tell him Lokesh is calling. Lokesh who runs the watch angdi." The shopkeeper doesn't oblige. Lokesh makes another attempt. This time, the shopkeeper does convey the message and the onion-seller comes to the phone.

"Gowd-re," cries our man, a note of dire urgency in his voice, "It's me, Lokesha. Yes, Lokesha who runs the watch shop. Will you tell my missis that the house key is with me? I took it by mistake. Hello? Gowd-re?" Two women in front shake their heads and laugh knowingly.

In a while, Lokesh's mobile rings. It rings and it rings. The passenger sitting next to him looks at him pointedly as if to ask why he isn't answering. The two women in front, too, turn around. Finally, he responds. He must have been plucking up courage, for the caller is the "missis" herself! "Sorry ma, yen-maad-odu, I put the key in the pocket by mistake. Sorry ma." He says sorry many times, and an equal number of "what-to-do"s.

"I'm near Mayo Hall," he says. It's a shameless lie. The bus has barely crossed the Indiranagar RTO. "I'll be back by two o'clock." It is 11.45 a.m. That means Mrs. Lokesh has to cool her heels for over two hours. She'll probably let off steam while waiting in her next-door neighbour's house, griping bitterly about her disrupted routine. When her husband comes home will she serve him yesterday's leftovers? Will she spike his sambar with extra salt? Oh to be a fly on the wall of the Lokesh household.

Now tell me, would I swap this scene for the plush and kingly comfort of a Volvo bus? Not in a million years.