BEST-(non)stops
BEST journeys are comparatively shorter where a road becomes the means of commute. Buses have multiple routes across the city where it stops at consequently occurring small stations at short intervals. The evidently red colored longer linear machines those are intended to carry as much number of people who are in one train compartment. Certainly in the internal maneuvering of different neighborhoods where it becomes easier to get into the bus because it requires a short walkable distance to reach at a bus stop.
Previously, these stops were indicated with a slender steel pole with a board on its top where bus numbers were written. These were embedded on the footpath. Here footpath becomes a place of waiting with different contexts everywhere. Standing there for a while or claiming a place to sit or support the body on a nearby infrastructure like shops behind, low heighted compound walls or discarded furniture.
But recently, the bus stops witnessed a modern design in its form and nature of activities it allows. (I claim it to be modern because it has a designated program and structure of sitting and waiting but at the same time providing a place of shade under its roof. Materially it allows multiple replications with the use and configuration of several steel members. Also a profitable motto is attached to it by making it such that it allows to advertise and inform public with provision given for hoardings and boards getting attached to it; on its top as well as on its bottom.) In making of this, it truly becomes a public infrastructure to while away time; also when one is not waiting for a bus at different times of a day.
Both these different looking yet serving a similar purpose of indicating a stop; allows diverse and hybrid form of activities to happen.
All buses have specific routes indicated by bus stops where some routes intersect; these buses constantly all through the day repeats its same route of going and coming again and this cycle repeats continuously.
While going there are stops and similarly while returning back, it has stops; infact people are going somewhere and sometimes coming back towards its home.
Two modern bus stops standing opposite to each other experience distinct nature of activities around it. This narrative talks about two bus stops; one of which is towards a railway station (240:going) and the other is towards a neighborhood (240:returning).
240:going – It is 8:00am, the locals are waiting in crisp ironed clothes; all kind of people, kids dressed in uniforms with enormously huge bags accompanying their schoolmates, teens dressed casually, working men and women, labor and once in a whiles with smaller belongings. The seating space on the bus stop is already filled, while some occupy the space behind it, on a thick compound wall adjacent to the footpath. Some anxious ones are standing on the road below to be able to get into the bus, first.
240:returning – (looking at all those people waiting at 240:going)Observing their eyes that are constantly looking on the other side of the road to speculate the time their bus will take after crossing me. The space around me is not activated yet. But, some slum dwellers walk towards the mangroves subsequently gazing at people who are standing across; waiting.
The contrast is evident.
240:going – A red bus arrives with a swift of wind. Spreading dust all around as soon as it applies brakes. People are squeezing their eyes to manage their footstep on to the bus entry. Passengers, who are on the window seat, are resting their hands on the safety pipe looking down. Layering dust on the clothes of the passengers the bus stop settles again with new set of similar dressed people.
240:returning – Behind me is a garage, behind which, is a mangrove cover. Private luxury buses parked on an open piece of land behind, continuously comes out by embossing its tyre onto the soft ground, subsequently making other vehicles wait. Marble godown, car garage, paan-beedi shop, tea stall and an tile storing warehouse are adjacently behind me which are yet to be operational through the day.
240:going – Shops that sell services and products such as; a beauty parlor, designer clothe shop, shop selling car accessories, laundry and an estate agent office, are all located behind the bus stop with a small buffer space between them and the footpath, which is slightly above. Partitioning them is a 1.2meter height pier with a lamp-post above it. Above these shops, is a seven-storied residential building. These shops will open in an hour or two but some people living in their flats, observes the waiting bodies along with a newspaper or a cup of tea in their hand and their elbows resting on the sill of the window.
240:returning – The tea stall and the paan-beedi shop have opened up. As the shop owners still do their daily rituals and setup, rickshaw-walas have started arriving while some have parked their vehicles to sip tea and bundle their tobacco along the footpath and started occupying the bus stop meeting their acquaintances and friends. The buses which cross me don’t even bother to stop apart from the fact if some passenger needs to get down here.
240:going – More and more number of people start waiting for their bus; some engrossed in their smartphones while some struggling to look far away to spot if their bus has arrived or not. In this mess on the footpath and along the road, some morning walkers are returning back to their homes, they are adjusting themselves to move to the other side of the crowd from the footpath. (The bus stop structure has occupied three fourth of the footpath).
240:returning – Cars and auto-rickshaws that are to be serviced or repaired have also started occupying the road, around me. While some owners of these automobiles are waiting behind the enclosure of me to protect themselves from sunlight. Auto parts get stored on the seats until they are to be used. Goods start getting loaded in the marble godown. While labor unloads from the truck, truck owners rest on me to supervise and respite.
240:going – Some waiting men pretend to not look at them while waiting for their bus, as some groomed women come out and gather in the buffer space in front of the parlour. Women stare at the clothes displayed inside the mirror of the shop, some vehicles get parked near the bus stop to buy accessories, locals meet friends waiting for bus as they go to give their clothes for laundry. Estate agents sit idle outside their shops. Old men occupy the bus stop, as it is the nearest place from their homes to sit and observe activities happening on the street.
240:returning - local women and school kids arrive back home and tries to quickly move out of this space. A salesman also gets down here and asks address to the workers and auto rickshaw guys around.
240:going – To prevent oneself from the scorching sun, passengers try to move under the roof of the bus stop. Women tie their dupatta around the face and neck while some tend to move under the tree around. This time, the visitors such as sales men, acquaintances, domestic help, etc occupy around me.
240:returning: The day is gradually setting down and rickshaw-walas and workers working behind in the workshop rests in the auto-rickshaw and on the sitting space on me. While some laborious bodies of work still exhausts itself. Some young couples get down here and sit for a while, as there are ignorant bodies around.
240:going – A group of old men, who regularly meet at the bus stop, sit idle or whiles away their time. Kids from neighborhood gather behind the bus stop on and around the piers and also occupy the bus stop by resting their legs on to the partition ahead. Dogs occupy the underneath area of the seating space. Streetlights lit the street and passers by move through this space as if it has disappeared. Usually this serves to the people living in the building nearby and behind.
240:returning – as the day settles, during evening the vehicles gets handover to its owners. Collects and cleans the paraphernalia around and moves away to their particular homes. The streetlights are dysfunctional which also allows some locals from the neighborhood to occupy the seating space, which is a piece of kota stone in the garage and behind side of the bus stop to consume tobacco or even drink. The pan-bidi shop behind supports this space. Swiftly moving automobiles lit this space for fragment of seconds and the only operational bulb of the shop make footpath walk able. Dogs secure this space. All these things act as a screen to hide.
When one bus stop disappears mentally, the other emerges with a completely different nature of activities physically. The bus, which is in constant motion, allows such bus stops that are static to become animate during different times of a day.
