4th November was just another busy evening in Bangalore. The long traffic snarls due to deepavali rush on all roads. I was heading home and a failed Tatkal transaction meant I was going by the next best option – Kerala RTC!

It was almost 7 months since I traveled to Ernakulam by KSRTC and I was yearning to do so. After a bitter lesson in the past from the slow moving Rajahamsa’s and the snobbish travelling companions in Airavat, I chose to travel in the Thiruvalla Super Deluxe (perfect timing reaching EKM at 7). But to my horror, the bus reached Hosur only at 9 30 and I thought I would really get late the next day.

But once we exited Karnataka, the real show began. The skillful driver with his amazing agility just flew through the traffic at around 100 kmph most of the time. And he didn’t even break a single traffic law while doing so. I just couldn’t afford to sleep while this was going on, as I had got front seat.

We reached Palakkad at around 4 am. That is the scheduled time. Which meant we saved nearly 1.5 hours. It was faster than train! The only disappointing part of the journey was the conductor got a bit cranky because people were asking him to stop the bus every now and then to get down, once we approached Ernakulam.

At this point I am sure that KSRTC has now become more passenger friendly and greatly improved in its services, especially long distance ones. It needs to build upon this and needs to reach out to more people who think private buses are the only ones plying in India.

Jithin
[email protected]

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