Bus Journeys of India

Travelling by bus here in India is very practical and easy. There will always be buses to catch and some place for you even in the most crowded vehicles. It is only unfortunate that you sometimes (every second) have to fear for your life and that the infrastructure of the country is still in progress..

So last Thursday we were enthusiastic when taking our cheap ordinary bus from Mysore to Hampi. The ten hour-journey costed us only some 300 rupies. I was well prepared. The same day I had read around five articles about the disastrous bus explosion in Andra Pradesh, so I was exited and thrilled about the forthcoming journey. Even though we had had trouble finding any available transports that weekend because of the Karnataka festival, we hadn't predicted that our bus would be so filled with people as it was when we entered it in Mysore. In the beginning we thought that most of the people standing in the aisle would get off in one hour or two, but it appeared that they would be standing there the whole journey to Hospet. Instead of people getting of at the stops there only came more and more people. There were no space, but still everyone was just pushed and forced inside. Those poor ones who had the seats next to the aisle had maybe around three other people sitting on their lap. There were 50 seats in the bus, but we predicted that in the middle there were maybe even more people standing than sitting. So we were over hundred people in that crazy bus, which droveti too fast on the bad and bumpy roads.

In the middle of the night we heard some strange noise when something cracked inside the bus and we had to stop beside the road. It took only a couple of hours for the Indians to fix the bus so that the journey could continue. Nobody probably thought about that the reason for the bus breaking in the middle of the night COULD be that there were way too many people and that the driver were driving like mad on the bad roads. No. It was only karma.

Getting on a bus in India is always a fight of the seats and the space. There is no politeness, no queuing and no respect for the others. You just have to fight your way through the rushing people and forget all you've learnt about good manners and patience. But when you once made your way inside the crowded bus the people are as gentle as ever. Everyone is tolerate and patient and no one shows bad temper even though you might be pressed against many random people in the uncomfortable heat on a bumpy bus ride. In an amazing book called Shantaram, which I'm reading at the moment, the author Gregory David Roberts couldn't have described it better when talking about trains in India.

...the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards.