The Bus Conductors of Mumbai

"Pudhe Chala! Pudhe Chala!" Doesn’t it sound familiar?

Well, very similar to ‘India! India!’ the exact cheer that we make throughout the Olympics. People watch the games with a strong grit even while hanging in the buses with a phone in their hands when the conductor continues to shout "Pudhe Chala! Pudhe Chala!"

We’re so used to having these nameless voices in khaki with automated ticketing machines in their hands and a bag full of change telling us to move in our daily commute. Do we ever pause to think about where they come from and what’s their story?

Every B.E.S.T. bus in Mumbai has a conductor uncle who makes your ticket and gives you your change. But you are mistaken if you think that is all they do. They travel so much yet not at all, the masters of the same route they traverse multiple times. Sometimes they become referees when fights break out and sometimes ask the selfish men sitting on the women’s seats to make space. Sometimes they help a lady running to catch the bus with her broken umbrella and other times, help her with her mischievous kids. At times when you are clueless they remind you if your stop is about to come and sometimes give you the inside scoop on the bus passes. Sometimes they let older Mumbaikars get in from the front of the bus and pretend they never noticed when the driver asks.

They do many things that go unnoticed, things we forget and never pause to think about. We go on with our day and our busy lives. The bus is just a way to reach our work or college but for those uncles with the hundreds of clinging coins, the bus is their workplace. To us, all the bus conductors are the same, just a way to get our tickets and sit comfortably with our earphones in, but each bus has many different personalities manning its day-to-day operations. Some witty and humorous. Some kind. Some irritated and some bitingly sarcastic. And some completely being of a different gender, several female conductors are ruling around their small empires in the city. They stand and swirl through the bus, make their voices clear enough to the passengers, all this without wearing the tag of, ‘That’s a woman doing a man’s job.’

So the next time you’re on your daily bus, the one you wait ages for at the stop, pay attention to the people who help make that journey just a tiny bit more comfortable. Notice the wrinkles on some of their faces or the family photos in the cover of their phones or the 5-minute lunch break they take when the bus is mostly empty and again “Pudhe chala! Pudhe chala! Don’t keep people waiting!”

Yet do remember that there are people behind you, still waiting. So do look back upon them because to know where you are going, you must know where you come from.

- Shefali Dubey

Volunteer, Editorial Committee 2024-25