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How a simple bus ride made me feel proud to be an Indian
The story of public transportation in two nations
A few days back, I was watching an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj on Netflix where he talks about how public transportation is unreliable in the United States and how it is a huge pain for citizens to travel by trains or buses in pretty much every state. Trains suffer from frequent delays, cancellations, and sometimes, they don’t even turn up, leaving the people who don’t own cars stranded on their way to work.
This got me thinking: I live in India and I don’t have my own vehicle. In spite of that, barring a few occasional delays and cancellations, I have never felt that public transportation is unreliable in my country. Here is a story about the three cities I have lived in:
Case 1: Silchar — the ubiquitous auto-rickshaw
I work in Silchar — a small town in Assam, one of the North-eastern states of the country. The public transport system here consists mainly of auto-rickshaws — those yellow-black three-wheelers that can seat up to 5 passengers and will take you to any corner of the city for a maximum of 35 bucks. They are cheap, safe (especially for women), and can be flagged down anywhere in the city within just a couple of minutes of wait-time…
