Here, we look up to the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Co. more popularly known as BEST. Yes, I am refering to the gorgeous Burning Red coloured buses that ply on almost every street of Mumbai and cater to over 45,00,000 (Forty Five Lakh) people a day. With the introduction of AirConditioned Services plying on arterial roads and long routes of the city, it has only made the lives of our a tad be less stressful.

Times today are signified by cut-throat competition, in getting a job or getting a bunch of well deserved promotions. But, the one thing that hurts the sentiments and patience of every citizen of Mumbai trying to use the public transport system is the poor frequency of buses. This eventually gives rise to insanely crowded buses that one may board, but at their own risk of falling off. Must you know that, if they were lucky enough to get in, you have the chance of facing a respiratory arrest. Why? They are crowded to the point that the windows are rendered useless.

Only today, I was waiting for an AS-505 to take me home from Santacruz Depot. This bus plies between Santacruz Depot in Western Mumbai all the way to C.B.D. Belapur in Navi Mumbai (New Mumbai), a town developed to ease the population burden of the city of Mumbai bursting at its seams. The BEST has for the convenience of the commuters, pasted a time table of the bus departure timings on the Security Cabin at the OUT GATE of the depot. And this is where the mockery begins. I look at the time table to see when the next bus is, and I realise that the last bus to leave was at 2:30 p.m. (As told by the security guard to me). And the next bus to leave will be mine, i.e. at 3:43 p.m. Two buses in the middle haven’t left at all. The guard goes on to reveal a set of mindbowgling issues that tax every customer or passenger of this highly spoken about public transport utility. For starters, Bus Drivers on a wage system are paid a mere Rs.4,000.00 a month. Ergo, they quit. Why? Simple. They get paid over Rs.9,000.00 a month for driving private buses and make more money if they drive buses out of town. What does a Rs.4,000.00 salary do for a man with a family in a city like Mumbai? As we discuss this, I remember a conductor once telling me that the driver of an incoming bus to the depot is responsible for the tanking up of the bus with CNG. However, the lazy driver doesn’t do that thereby causing the next outgoing driver to take the bus for refuelling thus causing a delay of over 15 minutes for the bus to leave the depot. The guard however refuted that claim saying that the Undertaking has no drivers left (or very very few of them), so re-fueling the bus is out of question. The Undertaking has made purchases of Chinese Cerita King Long buses, that have shown more failure in their service than the Indian Leyland and Tata buses. Question: Did we not run trials on these buses? If yes, how is it that conditions of the buses post delivery is in shambles? Before this, there were Low Floor Tata Starbus buses, which had automated doors! WOW! But, here is the reality, the doors were held open by sutli or Jute Ropes. What a shame. Recently the newspapers informed us of some incoming deal between Volvo of Sweden and themselves. The money of the Indian taxpayer is already going down the drain, read potholes and now there is a strategy to flush the left overs down the pot. The General Manager of the Undertaking said that they were running trials on the Wadala – Kalamboli Route with Tata Hybrid CNG Buses as well. Common sense must prevail here. The existing maintainence staff is not equipped or trained to service computer serviceable buses. Also, a fleet of buses with different makes of the same manufacturer is understandable, if not recommended. But, a fleet of buses with different manufacturers is simply bizzare. If you dream to make Mumbai a world class city, it doesn’t take a Sea-Link or a Huge Airport connected by 20 different types of roads. Fundamentally, it takes the confidence of the public to treat the utilities with respect, something that will happen if the public doesn’t feel continually betrayed by them. We need to fix problems, not look for new alternatives and leave the problem hanging in the air. The new alternative poses to be a problem and there we have a bunch of them.

The sixth pay commission was supposed to be a turn-around that would raise the standard of living of the government employees. But, when you look at an IAS man drawing a fat package with a bunch of governement benefits that would make a corporate honcho look like scrambled eggs, you will want the answer to the question that I will put forth now. Why does the sixth pay commission not trickle down to the places where it needs to go? Answers to questions like these will make the difference that every man, woman and Child in Mumbai is waiting for.

The New BEST Volvo

The Entire movie is aesthetically written over a very sensitive topic, that we today choose to rather casually ignore, ‘True Love’…“Oh C’mon, how different is it from the DDLJs or the KKHHs or the KNPHs?”…you have to trust me, when you see this one you will be left with nothing less than a pleasing smile on your face as you see the ending credits whiz vertically down the screen.

Oh Great! I actually started talking about this backward to the front…LOL! But, seriously I don’t want to discuss the story ‘coz it would render the entire purpose of watching the movie ‘pointless’. What I do want to say is that Deepika Padukone in her ‘Best Performance’ till date has simply left me speechless. She acts effortlessly, she emotes more than naturally, and it is hard to believe that the Banglore chick is new to cinema just because she has only 4 releases to her credit. The one thing that has really been her best feature according to me is her smile, and this has been very beautifully exhibited all throughout. Mind-blowing acting!!!

Saif Ali Khan, is a man who has to be saluted. Firstly, for the risk he has taken in making the movie at a time when a lot of people would think more than just thrice before blowing up about 300 rupees in seeing the movie in the multiplexes (Thanks to the Global Economic Slowdown… )…the actual risk being making a movie on a story that is more than used over and over and over and over and over and over in the past God alone knows how many years of the Film Industry or documented acting as a whole. And secondly, for a performance par-excellence. When you  see the 40+ actor pull off a few, well I’d say, pretty difficult dance moves or a few intense scenes with Comedy or Trauma in their story-line, is when you see that the man is a man to stay. The panache with which he carries himself is great (An understatement).

Rishi Kapoor, a sutradhar (Literally meaning Narrator, but in this movie an intregral character playing more than just that), is seen in his jovial but uniquely serious self. Rishi-sahab has according to me shown the true ‘Kapoor-effect’ in this movie and his ending sequence with the moment marking  the return of the evergreen Neetu Singh Kapoor was cutely awesome.

The locations, props, dresses, and all of the remaining logistics that make a movie a movie are simply beautiful be it the English Countryside or the streets of London or the Gullies of Dilli or streets of San Fransisco, simply B-E-A-U-tiful.

You have to see this one, and if you can’t appreciate it, I pray for you.

Cheers!

Apurva…

At precisely 11:26 p.m. his phone buzzed with the arrival of another text message. One would have to agree that the most popular cellular phone service feature was indeed binding these two people together. He unlocked the screen of his touchscreen smartphone and went on to read what it said,

‘Bdi Prob…Gd nite…Kal batugi…Nw swtchin off…bye…dn cl or msg’

(‘A big problem…Good Night….Will tell you tomorrow…I’m turning off my phone…bye…Don’t call or message me’)

His eyes widened, and pulse raced, thoughts of absolute chaos began setting in his mind. Absolutely what he was dreading for all this while, another mistake, another blunder had been committed. ‘How could this happen now?’, he thought.

Some more on its way…Soon…