Ticket to ride

Bus conductor for a trip, our correspondent gets on a handsome roadster and finds out how hard it is to tackle the charge of passengers impatient to get to their destination
Aage peechhe koi bina ticket ke hai? (Anyone at the front or the rear without a ticket?)”. Conductor Mohammad Ayub’s question inspires a group of schoolboys to jest: “Aage peechhe sab ticket le chuke hain, bas beech walon ko chhod do (everyone at the front and the rear has bought tickets, just spare the passengers in the middle).” Aboard the Delhi Transport Corporation’s (DTC) air-conditioned bus—route no. 419—from Ambedkar Nagar to Old Delhi Railway Station, sleepy distances are punctuated by hasty stops and wisecracks.

It all begins at the control room of Sukhdev Vihar Depot, one of DTC’s terminals for the new fleet of low-floor airconditioned buses, where Ayub marks attendance against his employee number—19357. At the ticket section, the serial number of the first ticket in his inventory—I’m itching to wield the neat bunch—is noted. At the end of the shift, the number of tickets sold will be tallied with the cash he brings in—a deficit of Rs 10 and he wouldn’t be allowed to board the bus the next day.

The 35-seater bus with a wide aisle, large windows, automatic doors and neon poles is one handsome roadster. The temperature is a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius, the ear-splitting FM radio is conspicuously absent, and dusty Delhi rolls by at a remove. Picking up a few passengers en route to Ambedkar Nagar, where the one-hour-and-twenty-minute-long journey actually begins, Ayub explains the ticketing procedure. I spread a towel on my lap and lay out the tickets, which come in three denominations—Rs 10, Rs 15 and Rs 20.

A girl with a backpack boards the bus at Modi Flour Mills in Okhla; she will disembark at the next stop, her smile the ticket to a free ride. The driver is willing to look the other way . At the next stop, however, I must turn down unruly schoolchildren who do not intend to buy tickets: “Dus rupaiya ticket, pass nahi chalega.”

Clocking in at 3.50 pm at the timekeeping post at Ambedkar Nagar, the bus pulls up noiselessly to admit a drove of passengers. Grateful for the glass pane divider in front of the conductor’s seat—a woman in khaki can attract more than a few curious glances—I hand out tickets for Chirag Dilli, Moolchand and Red Fort, tearing the scraps of white paper at the destination and returning change. The charge of the commuters—some first-timers who ask for clarifications (“Daryaganj jayegi?)—is too urgent, and Ayub steps in.

... contd.

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