Four months ago we moved from Banashankari to NGEF on old madras road. Banashankari, is old Bangalore, NGEF the new. Banashankari always felt like Bengalur, the idea, I had of Bangalore from my childhood. The newer areas of Bangalore, Whitefield, NGEF, Marathalli, Electronic city never feel like Bengalur to me, its a whole new city, ahead in time. I feel the newer Bengaluru sometimes looks artificial, clumsy, and more like it was built in a hurry. Looks like pockets of neat, clean apartments in the middle of a slum. They just don’t gel.
Anyways, ever since we moved here, I have begun to use namma BMTC to commute, as part of my every working day routine. And most days I happen to see something that would bother anyone not used to BMTC. Nowadays though, I have got used to it ...for good or bad.
The first bus I get into everyday is to get to the old madras road (now making space for the new namma metro). It is only a couple of stops away from my stop, but since the road is too dusty to walk I am forced to take a bus for the short trip.
Officially it costs me 3 rupees. But when I give the 3 rupees to the conductor and say "main road", he `ll invariably give back 1 rupee and walk away. Yep, no ticket. And when I invariably give back the 1 rupee and ask for a ticket he`ll (or she `ll), grumble as if it is something strange and criminal to ask for a ticket. This, well, most people in Bengaluru, would know, is one of many common of tricks the BMTC bus conductors have up their sleeves. A lot the people are of course, happy paying the 2 rupees.
The other short trip I have to take is when travelling back, from my office to ITPL. And, a lot of the times I take a volvo, the frequency of these buses is pretty good, a lot of the times better than normal buses. These volvo buses are meant for the elite IT techies of Bangalore, who else could afford to pay 50 bucks for a trip from majestic to ITPL every day? The buses are very comfortable, air conditioned and you never feel the "pain of traveling", except of course the traffic (at whose mercy Bangaloreans are), about which the bus can’t do much.
And guess what, the trip from my office to ITPL costs 10 (only), "cool". Most people can afford it. Is it not? The entire bus will be full of people wearing their badges, IBM, TCS, GE, DELL etc. These buses and the people who travel in them are very different, a different section of the market, society compared to the people who travel in normal BMTC buses. The people traveling in volvo s are educationally more qualified, have better jobs, contribute more to the economy and society, supposedly.
Yes, supposedly, but only supposedly. On one of my first days, traveling on this route I witnessed something that made me think.
A lot of the techies paid the conductor only 5 bucks, and said "ITPL". The conductor took the 5 rupees and walked away expression less. This was the first time I saw someone doing this in a volvo. So I thought it was something very unusual and isolated. But it happened routinely almost everyday. It was either the passenger offering 5 rupees or the conductor returning 5 rupee when someone gave him a 10 rupee note.
By the way, there is no ticket checking on these buses. I have never seen one. Why does no one check the passengers in these buses? Because people traveling in volvo s are elite? Or because they are educated, so they would be honest and always buy a ticket.
I feel there is something seriously wrong with the way we people do things. In a normal BMTC bus, though this was not right, I did not care coz the people travelling were from villages, carrying their vegetables, flowers, or small shopkeepers with their plastics, garments or construction workers who are never even adequately dressed. But what’s wrong with the IT techies earning tens of thousands (if not lakhs), a month?
What is the use of education if we can’t inculcate basic human values? Does it not reflect very badly on us as a society? What is the use of trying to put a man on the moon if we cant do the simplest of things honestly, buying a ticket in a bus? Do not all our economic, technological developments become meaningless?
What forces people to do this? What forces the bus conductor to do this? Is it just that the transportation is just too expensive for the common man? Is the salary the conductor gets just not enough to lead a simple life in Bangalore? Or is it just human greed? Or lack of values? Or a complex combination of all these?
As I was discussing with a friend the other day, the goals we need to set for ourselves as a nation and society, must be things like getting people to form a queue for a bus, honestly pay for the tickets, not littering in public places etc. Everything else can come later.
