Rocking in the Free World

BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) provided buses seem to be my mode of transport of choice whenever time is on my hands. For 25 bucks, I can ride on any bus, from anywhere to anywhere, and do whatever, all within a day and nobody can question me, unless I am foolish enough to climb onto one of those ladies’ special buses (the pinkish-purplish coloured ones).

As a kid, I used to ride the bus to and from school back home, when we grew old enough to not warrant place on the school bus, from where we were unceremoniously ejected for having made passers-by miserable by using them for target practise. Rides on the city bus were fun sometimes, when the buses were relatively empty, but then again, when they got a bit crowded, the junta took sadistic pleasure in picking on poor school kids with fat bags and lunch-boxes in tow.

The bus conductors would make us remove our bags and carry them in our hands, and in that mish-mosh of humanity, as all of us school kids would try and get as comfortable as possible, cursing the others silently.

Cut to the present, where all those school kids have now grown up enough, and have started working. Some of them might just have ended up buying vehicles, braving Bangalore traffic because of some huge life-insurance premiums paid at regular installments. Yours truly, however hasn’t gone up the transportation ladder, still subsisting on office transport, and in the absence of it, on the ubiquitous BMTC buses.

For twenty-five bucks, I am the master of all the roads that BMTC buses ply on that I survey, for the duration of an entire day. The presence of people to meet, far and wide, strewn across the length and breadth of Bangalore ensures that the 25 buck pass is worth twice or thrice its face value.

Nobody bothers me or says anything about where I am to head or where to get off because of this ‘magic’ pass, in the absence of which, I am questiond by the bus conductor, and its irritating to be answerable to someone, even if it is necessary. Thats quite an irrational thought, but thats how I’m intrinsically wired.

The rough treatment meted out to our kind as kids has now evaporated away, with me being able to stand on the footboard and travel on the bus, whether it is crowded or not. With the wind blowing in my hair and the music in my ears, I see the traffic whizz by at close quarters, while standing half-outside the bus, sometimes dangling precariously, looking around.

My eyes are replaced by this camera, with the music in my ears acting as the soundtrack to the documentary that unfolds itself in front of me, and it feels nice.

One of the few things about adulthood that I prefer over my life as a kid.