A Day in the Life of the Bus

Lost in the glare of publicity surrounding the Prime Minister's trip to
Lahore are the people who actually made it happen. The operators of the
bus. Sure, there were plenty of others and even now committees sit to
thrash out matters like insurance, liabilities on both sides, the Motor
Vehicles Act, whatever. But there had to be somebody on the wheel. The
various players on the ground level to make the Delhi-Lahore bus happen is
officials from the Delhi Transport Corporation. From the top down, their
names are:-

Mr. G.S. Cheema, Chairman and Managing Director. DTC

Mr. Manjur Ahmad, General Manager, Traffic. DTC.

Mr. M.K. Sardana, Regional Manager, IS, DTC.

Mr. S. Saxena, Depot Manager, IS, DTC.

Mr. Hassan Zaidi, Senior Driver, IS, DTC.

Mr. Ajit Singh, Senior Driver, IS, DTC.

("IS" stands for Inter-State)


Let me assure you that when they were selected for their posts, religion
did not play any part. Nor has it played any part in the execution of this
project. Lets try and paint a short pen-portrait of Mr. Zaidi.

I have been driving with Mr. Zaidi for the past few days and can
confidently say that he has been chosen for his mature and smooth driving
style. The competition to get on the Delhi-Lahore route amongst the IS
drivers was intense, to say the least, even though it implies long hours
as well as a single-driver non-conductor kind of regime. The easy ribaldry
between the Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh drivers, once they accept
you as part of the scenery, reminds me of my days at sea, when it mattered
not what you were as long as you were bound by the religion of salt water.
Here it seems to be the faith of the tarmac that keeps things going
amongst a class of people (bus-drivers) much maligned all over the
sub-continent for their crudeness.

Zaidi is a family man, has one daughter of about 10 years ago who goes to
an English Medium private school. He hopes that she will be
self-sufficient when she grows up, and has left the choice of what she
would do when she grows up to her. He is a vegetarian by choice, lives in
NOIDA, a recent and modern suburb of Delhi where your neighbour's religion
is not any sort of a deciding factor. He has a phone at home, and is
looking to buy a computer for his daughter as he feels she has reached the
age where it is now essential for her to have one, like other 10-year
olds.

Zaidi's own view on the Delhi-Lahore bus is simple: he has driven longer
routes, this is one more. The longest bus-route from Delhi is to Ujjain in
Madhya Pradesh, 23 hours of driving through bandit territory in the
Chambal. Delhi to Lahore, by comparison, is a "mere" 11 hours, something
done with consummate ease over super-smooth highways on both sides.
Though the fun of riding along with celebrities and media feels great. In
the course of a photo-op shoot within Delhi, we stopped umpteen times to
the waves of cheering people.

Revealing question from some school children, playing truant near one of
the lower social eco order localities of Delhi: "What language do they
speak in Pakistan?" When I asked them whether they didn't see PTV on cable
or whether they hadn't heard the Pakistani cricket team doing their thing
on television for the benefit of people listening in chaste slanging Urdu,
they said, "Well, that must be for tv, what do they speak at home?" So,
guys, what do you speak at home, Swaa-dee-hili? Wonder what your
street-kids think we speak in India, a Hanuman-laced bovine language?
Forgive me the puns . . .

Talking to a cross-section of those who went to Lahore in the bus, once
they were able to go walk-about on their own, vignettes emerge. There is
more fear of traffic cops in the mind of the average Pakistani driver, for
one. There are enough Bihari and Bengali illegals there too, it seems.
Pollution in the cities is as bad as anywhere else in North India. They
were able to source vegetarian food with ease in the main bazaars and
bigger hotels. There are Hindu surnames in the telephone directory. They
also met some Hindu bus-drivers, who are as crooked as any other there.
The paintings and care taken of buses and trucks is better, but now the
Indians who buy their own trucks as small entrepreneurs are catching up.

Media hype apart, the Lahore bus belonging to Delhi has brought in more
information and interest on Pakistan than any bunch of cultural or sports
exchange. Parked, accessible to anybody after a simple request, there it
is, right at the gate of the Indraprastha Depot on Ring Road.

In fact, there are two, exactly duplicate, Lahore buses parked there.
DL-1PA-3710 and 3711. Ashok Leyland Vikings, front-engine, air suspension,
dual air-conditioner, dual generators for power and backups, snazzy
insides, the works. No doubt we've seen better, but the golden-beige
winget colour scheme buses are the only ones seen, in the last 52 years,
carrying a "Delhi-Lahore" destination plate.

And what they do on a daily basis is to spread the word. That yes, "they"
eat just like "us", talk, drink, have the same problems at home and at
school. Come to think of it, that's a thought, how did that happen inspite
of 52 years of being kept apart?