The Love for KSRTC
Febin V Thomas
Being from a village, what I had was nothing other than KSRTC buses while travelling to school. So KSRTC was part of my life and is always close to my heart. The rush to catch the bus and the bond with the buses are just memorable. As soon as I thought about writing this article about KSRTC, there were few buses that came to my mind straight away.
Photo : Jishnu Pillai / KSRTC Blog
Before coming to that let me give a brief history of my love towards KSRTC. While in school(8th) I started to travel by KSRTC. Every morning I used to run to Arattukuzhi junction to catch the bus coming from Mayam at 7.40. I still remember the bus. It was TE 78. After a short journey of five minutes we’ll reach the Vellarada sub depot. Now I’ve to catch the bus to Kattakada. Usually I won’t get the direct bus. So I used to travel in a bus that goes through Mylachal. That trip starts at 8.10. The buses that were used for that trip during my course of study at Kattakada were TP 51, TS 888 and TP 53.
You must be thinking I’m crazy when I say that I still remember the gear lever of TS 888. Surely these 3 were my favorite buses and I still like them. Then there was the TN 257, TP 149 amongst my other favorites. In the evenings I used to get RT 841. Every evening I used to get some time to spend with the mechanic friends at the garage. All these happened between 2006 to 2009. Even after this many years I’ve still got contact with one of them.
For studying higher secondary I had to move to Thiruvalla. Each and every time I went home I took KSRTC bus from there. Vellarada sub depot have only one Super Fast service and that is towards Erattupetta. This is a night stay service. So each time I go home from Thiruvalla I used to catch this bus which reached Thiruvalla at 6AM. The bus used that time was RRK 57. When I saw that bus recently I felt sad because it was no more a super fast as it has completed its tenure for running as Super Fast. Now they’re using RNK 383 for that service. RRK 57 has a special place in my heart and that’ll stay like that.
Later during engineering study at Thiruvananthapuram I traveled 70 plus kilometers per day in KSRTC. Also my college was SCT College of Engineering and that was another connection towards KSRTC.
It’s been 11 months since I’ve moved to Mysore. I’m proud to say that every time I’ve gone to home from here, I’ve used KSRTC only.
Even though the Karnataka SRTC has service directly from my work place towards Thiruvananthapuram, I books ticket only in our KSRTC, which I’ve to catch from suburban stand that’s more than 10km from my workplace. I don’t know why this happens to me every time, except for once or twice every time I’ve gone to home or come back from home the bus was RS 786. So that is also dear to me now.
My friends here have often teased me for taking KSRTC buses only. But they’ll never know my love towards KSRTC. KSRTC is a passion for people like us and nobody will ever know how deep it is.
