BMTCs, the conductors and me

Hey, I think I am getting quite popular among the conductors of BMTC.

There’s this lady conductor who always wants to chat with me whenever she sees me! I am quite reticent in buses. (What else should I be doing?) And probably this lady wanted to know if I could speak. That’s how the friendship began! And if I get into her bus when its empty (with not much of a job for her to do) I am always assured to have a very good time-pass. Sometimes I avoid the bus- when I am at a very important point in a novel I am reading and I want to read it in the bus without any disturbance.

There’s one conductor who has stopped checking my pass. He’s quite famous as the one conductor who refuses to let anyone in the bus unless he/she has a ‘very valid’ pass. But I have become an exception. Well, just avoids all the difficulty of digging into the bag searching everywhere for the pass. I am not complaining!

And there’s one who refuses to let me in his bus. LOL. Yes, it’s true. I had quite a big fight with him regarding the route of my pass last year. He’s got nothing on his head and nothing inside too. But he’s a nice person. And I hate him. What an irony!

During my days in MES, I used to travel by one particular bus which happened to be the only direct bus from Banaswadi to Malleswaram. The bus used to leave Banaswadi exactly at 8 am- that was before I began going in that bus. After I began going in the bus, the bus timings changed according to mine. Courtesy- the very kind conductor. The bus left only after the conductor made sure I was in the bus. I still can’t work out how much I owe him. Thanks dude.

After I began traveling by BMTCs after my 10^th, the buses have become a part of my life. The eccentric people I see, meet and talk, the kind and some not-so-kind conductors, the rash and some not-so-rash drivers, the engine sound of the old buses, the silence in the new buses, the scuffle to get seats, foot-boarding, enjoying Dan Brown in the last seat, listening to what the school going kids speak and play, checking out the new girl in the bus, the rayya’s and the hold-on’s to the fights I have had with the conductors and co-passengers- I have enjoyed every bit of my BMTC life. And my tryst with BMTCs is not over yet!