Some crazy memories are local.

Traveling within your town can help revive good old memories!

Aug 28, 2025

I started my career in Bombay (nowadays, people call it Mumbai) and traveled across the city in the 'local' trains, or 'locals,' as we called them. I was unaccustomed to the crowds, and nothing prepared me for the people crowding into the trains. Hey! I will stop here and move on six years to the time I lived in Delhi as a bachelor.

I moved to Delhi when I was twenty-seven, and, even though I considered myself a Delhi native, the fact remains that I had almost no experience or knowledge of the city.

When my school in Nainital made a fundamental change to our school system, my dad moved me to St Columba's High School in New Delhi. Our parents didn't spoil us back then. If we had an after-school activity, I'd walk two or three kilometers to the Central Secretariat, catch a bus to Dhaula Kuan Part One, and walk the two kilometers to our home in Dhaula Kuan Part Two.

When two women elbowed me!

I was unfamiliar with the rough ways of Delhi folk when I first moved from Nainital, and I recall missing a bus even when I was standing at the front of the line. Two stout elderly Punjabi women, wearing saris and low-cut blouses, stood behind me in the line, and when the bus arrived, it brought mayhem along as an unwelcome companion. The two women shoved past me, elbowed me in the stomach, causing me to gasp more with shock than pain, paralyzing me, and causing me to miss the bus. When the second bus arrived thirty minutes later, I was ready, charging in with an aggression I did not know I possessed.

We live, we learn, we become aggressive!

Living as a paying guest.

When I moved to Delhi over a decade later, I assumed my school day lessons had prepared me for the rough and tumble of Delhi life. My sister and I were paying guests in Defence Colony, one of South Delhi's upscale colonies. We met a chappie there, also a paying guest, who has since become one of my best friends. I was in the garage, and my sister was in a back room of the house. She didn't have access to the rest of the house, but always entered her room from mine. Our buddy lived above the garage. We call such rooms a 'chamri.' Listen to the audio file if you want to know how to pronounce the word.

Later, my sister moved to the USA to study and eventually live there. My buddy got married, and I moved up to the chamri and lived above the garage until I got married.

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I worked at a biscuit company, and my office was located on Lawrence Road (northwest Delhi), approximately twenty-five kilometers north of where I lived in Defence Colony.

The ecstasy and agony of DTC Bus Number 442.

I'd leave my room at about twenty minutes past eight in the morning, and walk the fifteen minutes to catch my bus at Andrews Ganj. Bus Number 442 always arrived at about ten minutes before nine in the morning, getting me to the office by 9:30.

In all the years I caught that bus from my home to the office and back, I never understood how the bus was always on time in the morning but persistently stuck to an irregular schedule in the evening. I'd leave the office between 5:30 and 6:00 pm, and wait for the bus. On lucky days, the bus would arrive in five minutes; however, most of the time, I had to wait between thirty minutes and an hour, which was frustrating. Then, a bus would arrive, with people spilling out of the windows and standing on the steps.

The bus driver never stopped the bus at the bus stop, insisting on passing it by a hundred meters. When I was in college, I weighed sixty-two kilograms and was athletic. In my final year, I contracted jaundice, drinking polluted river water from a stream when we went hiking. I should write about the two fateful treks I made in college.

The doctor put me on a boiled food diet, yet my weight ballooned to 77 kilograms. In the following years, a hard living sales life helped my weight balloon further, to 88 kilograms.

Visualize my portly self charging down the road to catch the bus, holding a cheap plastic briefcase in one hand. Sometimes, after missing the first bus, I'd turn back to see another bus – empty – halting at the bus stop. I'd charge back, only to miss the second bus. I could almost hear the bus driver and conductor giggling with evil glee.

Those awful auto-rickshaw drivers.

The Yamuna River bisects Delhi, and the eastern part of the city, 'across the Yamuna' – or, Yamuna Paar – was awful. We considered it the boondocks, but most auto-rickshaw drivers lived across the Yamuna. 'Yamuna Paar' is about twenty kilometers east of Lawrence Road, and I had to travel twenty-five kilometers south!

In the evenings, these chaps wanted to go home and always hoped to make an extra buck on their way home. Some days would be more frustrating than others, and I'd peer into my shabby wallet, counting my grubby notes to see if I had enough for an auto-rickshaw journey home. Smartphones and mobile payment systems were years away, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Despite graduating from India's best colleges, I was always broke.

Like the Chinese people during the era of Chairman Mao, we were all equally broke and didn't care about our relative poverty. Nowadays, a few people earn obscene sums of money, and the rest grind their noses in the dust for a pittance. Those who earn these obscene sums of money grudge the few rupees they pay their employees and use fancy terms like 'employee cost' to justify slashing the meager salaries they dole out with a frown on their faces.

Back to the tale of misery. The auto-rickshaw drivers always offered to drive me to their homes, but refused to drive me to my room!

Traveling by bus during the summer was always rough, with the wind blowing dust into our eyes, mouths, and noses. The monsoons were worse – imagine charging after a bus, holding an umbrella and a briefcase, with the bus driver refusing to wait while you closed the brolly!

Do I regret those early days?

Yet, we survived. I'd get home, wash, and cook. My buddy and I often walked down to the market for kebabs and beer. Life was tough in different ways than it is now, simpler and better.

I don't regret those bus chases. Apart from keeping me grounded in my career and life, those chases convinced me I had no hope of winning the Olympic 100-meter sprint gold medal. Those chases eliminated one career path!

Auto-rickshaw drivers are generally more well-behaved these days. With Uber, etc., people have a choice nowadays.

Calcutta’s broken buses!

I must mention one bus ride we took in Calcutta (now Kolkata) when I was in college. We took the train from college to Howrah and caught a rickety bus to Park Street. We stood on the steps – there was no place inside – with one of us standing on the bottom step. After crossing Howrah Bridge, the bottom step collapsed, and my friend landed hard on his bum in the middle of the traffic.

We were cruel. After laughing at the poor chap's predicament, we jumped off, waded through the traffic, and retrieved his carcass! Then, we walked to Park Street. The traffic was awful, and we reached before the bus!

Did I mention that public transport was never air-conditioned, so, by the time you reached your destination, you always picked up a collection of odors. If you were standing next to a woman, and picked up her often cheap perfume, you could be in trouble for no fault of yours!

Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride!