Probably the Bus is no more. It’s the first bus by which I traveled, the first bus that my village had seen. It’s my school bus. Whenever I think about my school days this bus, popularly referred to as “Anna bus” , painted in brown and yellow through my minds.
Well. For many it could be just a six wheeler wagon, but for me it is more than that -it revolutionized my village.
It was about 20 years ago, When my teacher at the government elementary school suggested to my dad to admit me in the nearby private school (well its just 15kms), for its good standards, all this began. My dad became serious about this and I managed to get admission also(which, I later realized, was not that big a deal). But the problem was that there was no transportation from my village to the school. It’s impossible for a small farmer who just had a bicycle to transport me regularly. It was then he started dreaming, rather a big dream then – a bus that comes to the village and picks up his child regularly. I am sure everyone would have laughed at that time, had he suggested this. For a village which is completely isolated from the town ,which had no means of communication, transportation with the nearer by town, I do think it was feasible to arrange a bus for a single person, not for a non-aristocratic farmer’s son in the least. My dad started to handle this by moving the coins, whatever that was available, politically. He met Legislative assembly members and ministers to send a government bus to our village to connect the town, and it never materialised.
Then he requested the school administration, which had 2 buses (the oldest buses available in the state at the time, I am sure), to send a bus through my village. The “anna bus” which passes through a near village ( Semoor) was his target. Though the local politician and the legislative assembly member at that time recommended the school administration to send it, the administration denied reasoning that it cannot run a bus for a single person. Then it boiled down to a problem of numbers. He never lost his hope, he started convincing his fellow mates to send their son/daughter to the school. This, I remind you is not an easy job because you have to pay fees as opposed to the government school which was accessible with a 5 km walk , where we never paid the fees. Moreover it even provided us free uniform and lunch. No one initially agreed for this, however my dad convinced 3 people and we became 5 in numbers and 2 in another village nearby. The school administration agreed. Everyone were celebrating , people were enthusiastically looking for the beginning of the academic year, curious to see the bus in the roads.
The first day we were all dressed up (the protagonists being sathasivam, Sophia, sangeetha, Usha and yours truly) to got to school. We had shoe in our legs which almost an alien habit and no one wore shoes in my village. We felt proud about ourselves. We landed in the bus stop by 6 AM for a bus which is supposed to come by 9. By eight the entire village was in the bus stop. we were heroes at the time, enjoying the cynosure. Time passed. It became 8.30,9,9.30,10,10.30 bus never came. Few convinced others saying could be late because of the first day. It became 11,00 and a messenger from semoor came to deliver the bad news that bus driver refused to drive it through our roads reasoning the quality of the road. Party pooper. It’s a mud road and on top of it our fellow villagers took encroached some ( or a lot) of the public roads to their own lands, so the size of the road was slightly small for a bus to pass through. We started to head back home from the stop with the sad face.
The next days were horrible. we will go to the stop knowing bus won’t come and we won’t go school but still we loved entering the new uniform and shoes and we used to play in the bus stop until 11 and we went back home. My persevering dad tried talking with driver and it was not fruitful. Then the villagers decided to have the road, cleaning the bushes and trees laying sand ,few people gave back few inches of the public property and few resisted. But finally after much hard work and negotiation, the road was ready and driver agreed after being bribed with a huge alcohol party.
On a fine day, the bus came with its engine better than any horn and spraying dust on both sides of the mud road, the bus arrived – finally! Villagers made a special pooja in the village temple and they were distributing sweets for other children in the bus, few even lighted the crackers. We got a bus, a bus on the very roads were only bullock carts were running. We felt modernized suddenly. Every day some kids from the village and my dog will be running behind the bus for some distance till they could no longer keep up with the speed.
The bus became the hero of our village. It came by 8.30 in the morning and 6 in the evening, on week days. The laborers started basing their working schedule with reference to the timings of the bus. when they hear the bus (which is audible for a km)they will leave the field for that day. Anna bus – had a roof that would leak and water gushed in during rainy days, torn seats were made of coconut fiber, tires that were punctured often, with its oft failing engine- gave my village unity, road and the education for the first generation.
I enjoyed the bus travel than the school, Mr.Somu was the driver and Sekar was the conductor. Though there were certain rules in the bus, such as “No shouting”, it never bothered me. I liked selvaraj- another conductor who comes often in the place of sekar. His personality – dark colored complexion, with red kumkum always in forehead, his commanding persona over somu and on all of us was quite impressive. Most of the times there will be Traffic in our roads (not because of vehicles but because of cows and buffalo’s)and he steps down to clear that and he whistles right from road and jumps to the running bus, quite stylish I must say, he was a hero for me. I dreamt of becoming a conductor, wished to have selvaraj as my name.
The dream to became conductor was often fueled by loganathan, my village friend who was still walking to the government school then. He had once taken a LSS( Least Stop Service) bus to Erode( the nearby town) with his dad and he talked about that trip for years and years. He too shared a similar dream to became conductor. The first thing we l buy from the shops during temple festivals was the whistle, the ornament of any conductor. At that age we were very curious about the way the nut inside the whistle rotated while blowing. Believe me or not, Loganathan did become conductor, well almost. He was a cleaner in a truck (lorry) which is almost equivalent to conductor of bus. Five years ago he died in a lorry accident, achieving and living his dream of being a conductor of a wagon. He was 16 years old.
Now, the anna bus is not running in my roads anymore. Some 18yrs before it entered my village and after that there was no public bus even today. We have a good road.
Few school vans are running and still few kids are still running behind it.
Hi Nanba…
Its really awesome and we really visualised your village while reading ……sorry while living with your past.
A great blog with a powerful narrative style.Your way of admiring simple and minute things in life really astonishes me…thats how great poets were born I think…keep publishing your ever inspiring poems thru this blog…So I can see the brilliant saravanan that I missed in two years of our university life.
Rock on!
loved reading it Saravana!! have passed the link 2 Ashish as well 🙂
great writing…simple yet brilliant!!
Good to read, I could able to visualize, I thought you used to go by C8 Bus after sometime, Not sure. Keep do your great writing whenever you have time…!….
Excellent sraravanabhavan……………. ur simple writing style s very impressive. loved it.
Very Nice to read about our Anna Bus (6396) Traveling , and recall our School days.