Three ways to one destination- Part II
Aliyeh
Rizvi sets off on Phase II of our project –
evaluating different ways to get to one destination (Cunningham Road – MG Road)
and how convenient or people-friendly they really are. This week it’s public
transport – the BMTC Bus. It’s 3:50 pm on a weekday and I’m standing here at the CSI bus stop on Queen’s Road, near the Veterinary Hospital, waiting for a 295, 300 or 302, which ever arrives first. There is no information on routes or timings at the bus stop but there are plenty of advertisements. Evidently, revenue precedes the need for critical public information. At 4:05 pm, a blue and white BMTC bus that has evidently seen better days shudders to a halt and I hop in, happy to finally be on the 300 and on an adventure into the hazy, crazy world of public transport in Bangalore.
In 1898, Shivajinagar (then called Blackpalli) was the site of a terrible plague which claimed over 12,000 (T P Issar, The City Beautiful) lives. Temples were immediately built to invoke Mariamman, the ‘Plague Deity’ who protects her people against viral diseases like smallpox, measles and chickenpox. Her symbols are the Margosa (Neem) tree and leaves, turmeric and rain, all possessing cleansing properties. The mass migration to the city outskirts during the plague also resulted in the creation of the early suburbs ( Basavanagudi and Malleswaram) and the development of a formal city sanitation plan.
The bus rolls past an old Unani and Ayurvedic medicine shop and tea houses selling the famous Suleimani Chai. The conductor finally shouts ‘Shivajinagar!” It’s 4: 10 pm. I now need to walk in to the Shivajinagar Bus Stand and look for 331-A to get to MG Road. The city route map on a wall is helpful except that South Bangalore, an entire section of the city, has been wiped out by the flick of a wrist! The Canara Bank ATM is right next to the Shree Ganesh Upahar, in case you need to stick around here for a while. The route information at each bay is in Kannada, but the bus numbers are in English. You might therefore, need to know your bus number beforehand.
4:45 pm :Many buses have come in together so there’s a bottle neck, with much honking. I hop impatiently into a
bus – 335E en route to Adugodi – which is a gleaming red, air-conditioned Vajra.
Popular Kannada movie tunes provide a pulsating welcome. The seats fill up
slowly and people poke their heads in constantly to ask where the bus goes, despite
the information being right above their heads on an LED scroller. The ticket
costs Rs 10 to MG Road, a bit expensive for daily commuters, but the bus is extremely
comfortable. If there were better feeder services in the suburbs and route or
timing information at bus stops, I would relinquish road rage, potentially high
BP levels and repetitive stress injury risks (ankle and knees) for ever.
BRV Theatre bears a striking similarity to the Bible Society ( once the Blighty Tea Rooms) building on MG Road with the same dressed stone, top battlements and gabled roofing with pinnacles. It was once an Armoury and the Head Quarters of the Bangalore Battalion (Auxiliary Force, India). In 1912, the present building included a Billiard Room, Reading Room, Ladies Room and a Bar. The Bangalore Rifle Volunteers (BRV), and ‘Defence Cinema’, came into existence in the early 1940s with BRV screening films only when there were no military-related activities on its premises.
Running parallel to South Parade (MG Road), we drive past what used to be Baird Barracks (Major General David Baird led the 1799 assault on ‘Seringapatam’ ), turn right at Manipal Centre and then left at the oldest electric power station in Bangalore (in 1904 we were the second city in Asia to be electrified, the first was Tokyo, Japan ) onto MG Road.
Sitting in the bus, the conductor sees me making notes diligently. He smiles and asks me “Number gottilla?" Board nodilla?” I smile back. I do not explain that I got onto 335E to track a daily commute to MG Road, but ended up travelling a hundred years back in time.