The SRTC has introduced ladies only bus service in Srinagar, giving female commuters something to cheer about. Aliya Bashir takes a trip.
Leaving home early on a foggy December morning, I was surprised to find the morning chill pleasing. When I reached Lal Chowk it was just a few minutes past nine. Most of the shops were closed and few were raising the shutters lazily. Students in bright red and brown woolen coats with mufflers covering their faces were rushing towards their schools.
May be my excitement had to something to do with the idea of travelling in a ladies special bus. In Kashmir the busses are overloaded and there are no designated seats for women, at least not in practice. Having separate busses for female commuters appeared to be a good idea.
The recently introduced Ladies Special bus service by the State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC), I was told leaves from Lal Chowk. However, in the morning on enquiring about the timing of the bus, I would draw the blank stares or expression like Oh! That Ladies special, from the SRTC employees. In the mean time my friend arrived. Finally my, now our, wait was over. We boarded the brand new white bus with green and yellow strips near Lala-Rukh hotel. The seats were still covered with polythene. Some Ladies Special buses had already left.
The 19-seats bus was empty. The driver shouted that it was already late. Our bus finally left the yard to ferry women commuters. The only males in the bus were the driver and the conductor.
“Our passengers who are mostly from working group, so our timing (for plying) is fixed accordingly,” says Abdul Gani, driving at a reasonably good speed to Wathoora.
At different stops girls, some wearing uniforms, would be waiting in clusters for the bus. Unlike other buses where a conductor virtually pushes in as many passengers into the bus as he can, here the scene was a bit different.
“This is for the first time that we are driving this Ladies special,” Tariq, the conductor of the bus, says with a smile. “We usually ply on Ladakh and Jammu routes, where there was no need to shout on each stop.”
A girl hurriedly waves her gloved hands and boards the bus; she was running out of breath. Isra Gani, 17 wearing blue jeans and a long black sweater had been waiting for a bus for more than half an hour. She is late for school. All buses plying on the Chanapora route were overloaded with passengers, with many dangling from the doors.
“I can’t believe that in this peak time I could find a seat that too without any trace of a boy,” she says with a smile. Unaware of the facility that the bus is meant for females only, Isra was all relieved and happy when the conductor told her that she could avail the facilities regularly. She had attempted to board many busses earlier but could not as busses were badly overloaded. Mostly she would miss her morning class.
“My parents would be so happy when they’ll come to know of this bus,” says Isra. “Oh! God this is our world from now onwards,” she added with a smile.
Most of the women travelling in the bus were unaware that the bus was specially meant for women.
At the Bagh-e-Mehtab bus stop, a couple they tried to board the bus, the conductor stopped the man saying, “You cannot travel in this Ladies special bus, even your seven-year-old son is not allowed as per the SRTC’S instructions.”
The embarrassed man disembarked and as the bus started to move, his companion wearing a pheran shouted from the bus window. “Waen khas chi badal busi. Be pyaray bye-passas nish. (Board another bus. I’ll wait near bye-pass).”
As the bus moved on, every passenger in the bus burst into laughter. Some college girls sitting in the back-seat were whispering among themselves, “Very good. These men always taunt us and disrespect us in local buses by saying, sham wakhtan te choeni yeman koeri mohniyvan soekh (Even in the late hours, these womenfolk cannot sit at home). Now we can move freely.”
An elderly women boarded the bus and she was surprised to see only women and girls then quickly added, “Kaehen koeran chu ye latar masti khush karan (some girls enjoy being naughty)”.
SRTC is using four buses as Ladies Special, which ply on different city routes.
With Lal- Chowk, Srinagar being the central point, the buses ply on Kralpora-Wathoora, Kashmir University-Rainawari, Wanbal- Sanatnagar and Bemina Degree College routes. Every bus plies thrice on the designated routes – morning, midday and evening. The fares range between five to 10 rupees.
“If our services will be available throughout the day it will automatically increase the awareness where women can access the services at anytime. This will also benefit us as our passenger rush will increase,” Tariq says.
Tariq says he is slowly getting accustomed to listen to women yelling and swearing, nudging elbows and prodding shoulders to get seated.
Each day women grapple with their own struggles in coping with social life, heavy traffic and mounting work pressure so the transportation facility can provide them a relief where a cross-section of women meets and exchange their good times together.
“It gets very difficult to venture out of the home in these cold mornings. This winter schooling would be a flop-show. We fear that the last five months unrest should not get repeated next summer. The market prices touched skies. Thank God the problems we had faced in public transport will get lessen to some extent due to these kinds of services,” were some of the lines I overheard in the bus.
The driver and conductor says just three trips a day isn’t making the bus a profitable venture.
The demand for more ladies only buses has increased in just a few days, SRTC officials say adding that they plan to increase the number of such buses. The SRTC is also planning to display the information regarding timings, fares and routes inside the buses and on hoardings near some bus stops.
At the last stop, the bus turned back to Lal Chowk the number of passengers increased and few were even standing in the passageway.
Some asked the conductor that there should be female driver and conductor, to which both conductor and driver say with a smile, “You are sensitive. How can you withstand the pulls and pressures.”
When the bus reached Lal Chowk, the women alight the bus and encircled the conductor enquired him about tomorrow’s timings and thanked him with all smiles and greetings.
Gurdjeet Singh, Manager Operations, SRTC says that they are getting overwhelming response from the people and they are trying to better their services to make Ladies Special a success. “We started with four buses to gauge the response, which has been very good. We are trying to see that women can travel on time and with respect,” he says.
