I D Scam
I was taking the bus to work the other day, and was just thinking about how I used to take the bus to school when I was in Delhi. School bus was for girls, or if you had a girlfriend who took the school bus(*wink*).
In those days, we had the Green Line[DTC], Blue Line[BL] and Red Line[RL].
A DTC monthly pass used to cost around INR 30, which we never bought. The system was that college students get to go for free,you needed to show some college id and that was it. Since we were in X, and that meant we were pretty much going to go to college, we figured we should get the same benefits.So we used our library card,school card, greeting card etc, basically anything with a photograph.
Besides, DTC was not our preferred method of travel, as they were very infrequent and slow. Our vehicle of choice was the RL. The trick was, you needed practice to get on to the bus. The driver had been specially trained to never completely stop at Bus stops. It would come in slowly, moving all the time, and would quickly accelerate away, so you had to have razor sharp instincts to jump on and jump off. If you jumped a second late or early, you would more often than not land on your ass.Those were the days...
We had a Khalsa college on my street, so there was never a dull moment. I remember once, when a rookie RL conductor asked a "continuing student" to buy a ticket. Jai Khalsa !! Of course, the driver had to run away, leaving the bus at the street corner and the conductor escaped with minor injuries.
During month ends our local traffic wallahs would suddenly get a conscience and try to make the road safer. This would occur with amazing frequency on the 28th of every month [except in February] and end on the 4th. If they saw anyone hanging from the footsteps, they would stop the bus and fine the driver.Fine justice that.
My friend Sanjay, Ramalingam and I had mixed luck with the id scam. As we were only getting started in developing the finely toned body and muscles that are our characteristics today, we could not convince the conductors always. We tried flashing the id FBI ishtyle, and had limited success till the smart conductors figured it out. Then we thought we would try to look menacing like the Khalsa guys, but could not as we did not have the beards or the swords. However, we always had success when accompanied by Vinod Dhawal. Maybe it helped that he was around 6 feet and two hundred pounds of muscle.
And a final note regarding time of travel, a seven minute journey from my home to school took less than five. Talk about service! If you were late for school or work, just tell your friendly neighborhood driver and he would take care of it.
In those days, we had the Green Line[DTC], Blue Line[BL] and Red Line[RL].
A DTC monthly pass used to cost around INR 30, which we never bought. The system was that college students get to go for free,you needed to show some college id and that was it. Since we were in X, and that meant we were pretty much going to go to college, we figured we should get the same benefits.So we used our library card,school card, greeting card etc, basically anything with a photograph.
Besides, DTC was not our preferred method of travel, as they were very infrequent and slow. Our vehicle of choice was the RL. The trick was, you needed practice to get on to the bus. The driver had been specially trained to never completely stop at Bus stops. It would come in slowly, moving all the time, and would quickly accelerate away, so you had to have razor sharp instincts to jump on and jump off. If you jumped a second late or early, you would more often than not land on your ass.Those were the days...
We had a Khalsa college on my street, so there was never a dull moment. I remember once, when a rookie RL conductor asked a "continuing student" to buy a ticket. Jai Khalsa !! Of course, the driver had to run away, leaving the bus at the street corner and the conductor escaped with minor injuries.
During month ends our local traffic wallahs would suddenly get a conscience and try to make the road safer. This would occur with amazing frequency on the 28th of every month [except in February] and end on the 4th. If they saw anyone hanging from the footsteps, they would stop the bus and fine the driver.Fine justice that.
My friend Sanjay, Ramalingam and I had mixed luck with the id scam. As we were only getting started in developing the finely toned body and muscles that are our characteristics today, we could not convince the conductors always. We tried flashing the id FBI ishtyle, and had limited success till the smart conductors figured it out. Then we thought we would try to look menacing like the Khalsa guys, but could not as we did not have the beards or the swords. However, we always had success when accompanied by Vinod Dhawal. Maybe it helped that he was around 6 feet and two hundred pounds of muscle.
And a final note regarding time of travel, a seven minute journey from my home to school took less than five. Talk about service! If you were late for school or work, just tell your friendly neighborhood driver and he would take care of it.
posted by Ram at
Friday, July 16, 2004
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home