Just another sunday

A few years back when I was based out of Pune, we used to travel within the city in these auto-rickshaw lookalikes called "tum-tum". Those were the days when I used to indulge in a spot of blogging called "The tum-tum musings". Ever since I moved out of Pune, I havent been able to do that. However, many a times I have thought that even while traveling in buses, I do engage myself in these so-called musings. So finally, today I decided to blog about my musings for the day, a sunday.

First and foremost, the BEST buses themselves. Thats what I travel in these days; so natural that I observe them a lot. What a transformation they are undergoing these days! Just a few months back, probably all we had were some beaten up, old chassis plying the city. But then they came up with some new AC buses along some select routes. Next, they started upgrading the normal buses too; so we got newer (read redder) buses with plastic individual seats instead of those generic benches, and some green and yellow lines running horizontally along the center.

Ofcourse, advertising and sponsorship caught on a lot during these times. All along the sides and the back, there would be commodity and movie ads, not to forget ads of even the "K" serials! Then sponsorship entered inside the bus, with the seats advertising tuition classes and FM radio shows. Even the hand grips have become transparent plastic so as to enable advertisement!

In the mean time, buses continued to get upgraded. There were red coloured star buses introduced. These are buses with huge windows, and all seats inside are in plain view from the outside. They would have digital displays for the destination names, and automatic door open/close mechanism. Then came some purple coloured star buses. Well, I havent found out whats extra in the purple-coloured variety other than the colour change. But these star buses are still in the luxury variety because the seats are plusher, and the tickets costlier than the normal fare.

And just today, I saw a new BEST "normal" bus with a twist. What was normal about it was that it was the regular red colour with the green and yellow lines. And the twist was that the destination and bus number display was on a scrolling LED display! So the conductor doesnt have to manually scroll the huge black cloth through the signboard anymore. They hopefully just punch in the bus number and the corresponding destination name starts scrolling like a marquee. I know its not that big of a deal, but I did look at it and say, "Wow thats an improvement, I want to take that bus." :D B-)