(An edited version of the article below was published in the Open Page section of The Hindu newspaper’s website on Sunday, the 15^th of September 2024.)        

         Bus vs Train: A Litmus Test of Your Trait

Frequent travelers, listen! As a mode of travel, which one would you prefer? Do you belong to a ‘Train-First’ category or a ‘Bus-First ʼ category?

 If you reply glibly as ‘sometimes it’s buses, sometimes trains’, or ‘it all depends upon the situation’ and ‘as the case may be’; you are wrong! Deep down there’s a reason for you belonging to either of the two categories. Most of us are either bus travellers or train travellers, unaware of why we are predisposed so in the first place.

Until recently I had been a Bus-First-One. My defining moment came the day I had been planning to travel from Mangalore to Bangalore, only by day bus.

First, my cousin suggested I try the day train instead of the bus. He told me about the train leaving for Yeshwantapur (in Bengaluru) from Mangalore at 11:30 am. Later my intimate friend showed me the train schedule in a mobile app. He also advised me to alight at a stop near the Mangalore Junction Railway Station, the Mangalore bound KSRTC passes before entering Mangalore City from Kumble, from where I would board the bus. 

Just as when the bus reached the said stop, Pump Well, well I almost leapt out from the bus in haste, scared as I was that my vacillating mind would pull me back to the bus! 

And I never looked back. I darted ahead like a bullet fired just then. I took a rick, landed at Mangalore Junction Railway Station and bought the ticket nervously, gripped as I was by a fear of the unknown. 

 Until I threw myself onto a single seat, I felt I was a stranger to myself. Panting, gasping for breath and sweating incessantly; the first thing I did was call and thank my cousin and my intimate friend for suggesting that the train was a better option. 

As the train chugged along I felt everything falling into place. Bus journey suits pretty well those confined to their comfort zones. The sloths, the indolent introverts, wary of changes, challenges, risks and adventures; settle for buses.

You go to the bus terminal, spot your bus and board it. It’s as simple as that. And what is a bus terminal? Laid back, tranquil, one of the least happening places! In contrast, you hardly spot people sleeping or hanging around on railway platforms. It’s a beehive in comparison to a bus terminal that’s a termite hole.

Now here come the train travelers. Organic, dynamic, go-getters, more daring and dashing fellows loving to navigate newfangled landscapes. They embrace changes, welcome challenges and take risks. Restless replicates of mercury, they are extroverts so jovial and zestful. Can you recall a bus journey passengers, all strangers, dropped into a conversation unlike in train compartments that witness bonhomie even among strangers?   

In the case of the train journey, the adrenaline erupts from the word go. You must be fully alert. You can’t help it. You must keep checking for the platform, train, and compartment (Reserved? General? A/C? etc.)   A momentary lapse may cost you too dear! And later it dawned on me that it was this anxiety only that used to stop me on the tracks when it came to train journeys! ‘What if I land on the wrong platform? What if I board the wrong train? What if I miss my station and alight at the wrong one?’

A train journey is not just about economy or comfort. The train journey is action-packed whereas a bus journey is in slow motion. Tell me one Indian flick the love birds elope or children run away in buses! Come on, to run away is to board a train.   

 “Always do what you are afraid to do.” How I wish I had been living up to this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson long ago. Nowadays whenever I board a train I feel relieved, having bid adieu to those lackadaisical buses and feel like joining a movement propelled by the kaleidoscopic train.