Bubbles of peace

The beautiful garden city has now turned into a dust bowl. With flyovers and the metro being constructed at every turn and corner, life has become akin to staying in some third world town. Sand piles, stones and liberal quantities of mud are strewn around in the footpaths. Honking vehicles clog the street, sucking out life from the lonely city beaten trees that have survived from the axe of the city builders. Apartments with no plan nor design keep springing up in small plots and jute out on to the roads. Some of the beautiful lakes are fast being filled up with overzealous builders who find it difficult to get land through proper channels. Today’s lakes are turned into tomorrow’s apartments. Garbage is dumped at every possible corner of this once green city and possibly new tools would have to be invented to navigate through most of the mess that would get dumped. Development has taken a sleazy turn and to be a developed nation if we are following this route then woe betide us as to what we have to endure to turn all these wrongs into rights.

In such a situation it is not easy to commute from one place to another in Bangalore. Only god can save you if the distance to office is inversely proportional to the amount of patience that you possess. Bleary eyed and shoulders slumped you reach home to be again pounded by near and dear ones to visit some far flung malls for entertainment. Tempers starts to strain on the edge of the mental cliff and barely manage to keep themselves from skipping of the ledge. Peace of mind is ultimately the royal goal of any human being and that is something Bangaloreans are desperately seeking for when they are out of their homes.

One of the best things that has happened to me was the introduction of the Volvo buses. A serene island of peace and calm navigating through the endless sea of insanity. In the cool confines of the bus I’m free to dream, sleep and read. Pictures of life, survival and struggle keep passing through its window and you just keep looking out as if you are seeing some gangster movie. Slumber slowly reeks into you, if the driver handles the bus like a baby, but you also witness some hair raising rides akin to those of a roller coaster if the driver is too zealous to be on time.

Conductors keep running up and down the bus asking for tickets which is a process similar to what is called as randomly beating around the bush. It would be hard for him to find a guy ready to buy tickets as most of them have the monthly passes with them. Scores of people inside the bus and the AC is turned up bringing a smile in the hot summer months and a spine chilling shiver during the winter.

Smell of different dosas and rice baths wafts through the bus in the morning when pangs of the stomach would have forced some commuter to open his tiffin boxes.  The melodious bhajans add their own flavour to the ambience which sometimes get abruptly distorted when the driver realises that the crowd is too young for the music to be appreciated. Meticulous conductors who force the drivers to wait at bus stops to meet the days target sometimes break the simple monotony of the bus journey as people start grumbling about the loss of time, but nothing can change the beautiful ride these buses provide.

Days have passed into years and I’m still riding on these bubbles of peace. Hope they have a long life.

BMTC Volvo Payana (Travel)

It has been almost four months now since I started going to office by BMTC bus. My office is situated at Varthur which is near Whitefield and my home is at Chikalsandra which is 2 k.m from Devegowda petrol pump. Thus the total distance from office to home amounts to around 28 k.m. For the last five years I have traveled out this distance on my Bike, but with the introduction of the Volvo services and also with the increase in frequency of the Buses, I decided to give it a try. Though there was the other option of office cabs but I preferred my Bike over the cabs based on comfort level of travel vs time taken.
There are no direct Volvo buses from Chikalsandra to Varthur, leave aside Volvo, there are no direct ordinary buses on this route. My home and office are located in such a way that I have to change three buses to reach office, this was one of the major reasons that I didn't try out the bus earlier. But finally one day a major traffic jam tipped me over to try out the bus. The Volvo bus which plied on my route was 500K, this bus came to Devegowda petrol pump and went to a bus stop called Kundanahalli gate which is about 4 km from my office. Thus for the major part of the journey i.e close to 22 km I was traveling by Volvo. Also for the rest of the 6 km, if luck had its way then I traveled by Volvo, but most of the times I get into any bus that comes along. For the remaining 6 kms, the frequency of the buses on both the routes are so high that I usually wouldn't have to wait for more than 2 minutes at the bus stop.
The number of 500K are close to around 24, I travel in a 500K that comes to Devegowda petrol pump at around 7:10 in the morning, Surprisingly the bus usually maintains it's time. But based on the driver, the time I take to reach the destination varies. On some day's I will be in Kundanahalli gate by 8:10, on others it can touch upto 8:30. In the evenings I don't have a fixed timing, thus my waiting time can vary based on the time I start. If I start after 7, then waiting time can be as high as 20 minutes before a bus comes along, otherwise from 5 to 7, a bus will be there for every 10 minutes. Some buses labeled 500C also come to DG petrol pump, their last stop being the Kamakhya depot. The cost of the ticket is 30 Rs, but I prefer to take the Gold day pass which costs 75 Rs, by buying a pass I overcome the common hassle of providing change to the conductor in each and every bus.
The Volvo bus is a pretty comfortable vehicle, The smooth ride and the AC are major pluses. But there are also some negatives, the legroom can be slightly cramped up for taller people. If you are standing in the bus then it can get pretty irritating when the driver starts experimenting with his disk breaks.
Finally I would say that BMTC has done a great job by bringing out this service which caters to the middle class public. For me it has been especially useful as I can catch up on my studies in the bus.

Volvo bus numbers:
Chikalsandra to D G petrol pump : 210 IA (This goes to Majestic, very less in frequency)
DG Petrol pump to Kundanahalli gate: 500K (Starts from Vijayanagar and ends at ITPL)
Kundanahalli gate to Varthur kodi: 333p, 328M. (Frequency is decent enough).

P.S: New bus from chikalsandra to ITPL 500P has been added.