No One Dared To Board Buses In Bengaluru, Then Came The Double-Deckers
If The BMTC Today Operates The Maximum Number Of Buses In India, Credit For Its Revival Must Go To These Vehicles Of Wonder
Much like tulips and the personal computer, the double-decker bus, too, has had its glory days. It followed a cycle replete with peaks and troughs, as commodities in the global markets do, with peaks becoming troughs, and eventually memories. And Bengaluru has had its first-person account with this phenomenon.
Double-decker buses once served as the identifier of mega-cities but economic prudence led to their being phased out worldwide. Pockets may remain — in Mumbai and London — but these are exceptions. Bengaluru’s bus transport system, too, acquired, operated and eventually phased out these buses. What happened afterwards is worth noting. And thereby hangs a tale.
The tale begins with a quick glance into the history of bus services in Bengaluru, which was none too impressive. For commuters the sighting of a bus was as rare as that of a dodo. It wasn’t by accident that BTS (the precursor to BMTC, the city’s bus-transport system) acquired the notorious catchphrase of bitre tirugi sigalla. To the uninitiated, the phrase was Kannada for “catch it, for the next might never come“. Old-timers would attest to this phrase as testament to the skeletal public transport that once served this city. The utility today operates nearly 6,400 buses — higher than Delhi’s 6,200 and Mumbai’s 3,800 buses.
Boarding a BTS bus was once the domain of fortune and luck — its schedules were that regular. Compounding the woes was the minimal number of routes. It was no surprise that the buses would always be overflowing with passengers — a reflection of the pan-Indian phenomenon of making do with whatever is available. However, all that changed once the double-decker bus arrived in the early ’80s. It became a hit despite its somewhat erratic schedules and slower speeds. Proof of this could be gauged from the serpentine queues at stops during all hours.
Borrowing from Shakespeare, if the regular buses had emotions, they might have gone green with envy at the soaring popularity of their double-decker counterparts.The double-decker bus operated from Majestic and Shivajinagar to various parts of the city, including Malleswaram, Domlur and Jayanagar. Their lack of manoeuvrability meant that they couldn’t be extended to all routes.
If Bengaluru is a concrete jungle, then the double-decker bus was the elephant in it. Its imposing frame, the number of passengers it could accommodate, and an upper deck that gave a new perspective to an otherwise dreary landscape, were all jumbo-like. In fact, never did one travel in a double-decker bus in order to quickly get from point A to point B. Novelty was the main attraction. Always.
Travelling inside one such bus was the stuff of fantasy. As a school kid, I remember commuting on bus routes 131 and 134 that originated from Domlur. I would weave my way through the crowd to the upper deck just to see how the road looked from atop. No vehicle other than a fellow double-decker was worthy of my attention. A whistle wasn’t enough for the conductor to communicate with the driver amid the din inside. A rudimentary system of ropes linked to a bell at the driver’s end achieved the same. The system was prone to misuse by the commuters but effective nonetheless.
In its heyday, Bengaluru was among the three Indian cities to operate doubledecker buses. Till 1997, as many as 84 such buses were in service when the BMTC decided to phase them out. The metaphoric elephants had become veritable white elephants. However, the enthusiasm the double-decker bus had rubbed off on Bengaluru’s citizens was there to stay.
That modern and efficient buses with lower maintenance costs took over BMTC’s fleet only helped. First came the Pushpaks, then the Parisara vahinis, the Big10s and the air-conditioned Volvos. The crowds swelled, this time due to better services.The BTS jokes, along with the double-decker buses, were consigned to history. As did the erratic schedules and inordinate waits commuters had to endure.
BMTC, on its part, has never had to look back since. And it may have to thank the double-deckers for the shift in perception.
