– Mithun Som

One of the important dimensions of being in a city is the ability to navigate it. For me a friendly city is one which has good public transport, which allows me to be mobile and be on my own. Cities, towns and villages in India has their own unique system of public transport. Having lived alone in different villages, towns and cities, navigating them through public transport became an integral part of my living and cherishing that place, and in this piece I bring forward that dimension.

I grew up in a small mining township in Chhattisgarh. Here one’s own vehicle, be it a cycle, a two wheeler or a four wheeler (only an Ambassador or Fiat at that time) were the major forms of transport. We had cycle rickshaws as the only form of public transport, which were available in bus stand, or some specific place like a hospital. Whether for everyday use or for emergencies, one had to go and call them.

In those years, trains for me were always meant for long distance travel and I looked forward to our yearly or bi-yearly trips to grandfather’s place as much for the train travel as for the trip itself. Train travel also meant an opportunity to buy a comic book or magazine in the Wheeler store and fighting for the window seat. I cherished the illusion of self moving after the long journey. From this beginning to my total reliance today on public transport (mostly trains) for my daily commuting has been quite a journey.

My first experience of staying in a city was at Jabalpur where I went for my graduation.

Here I relied on cycle rickshaws on the rare occasion we got to get out of our jail-like hostel. My hostel did not allow girls to step out of the campus anytime without a guardian and people like me who did not have a local guardian had almost no interaction with the city except for the few times when we were able to sneak out.

So when I landed up in Mumbai for my Masters, and had the first real interaction with a big city, I found it exhilarating. Mumbai has multiple modes of transport, the bus, the train and also autos and taxis. Little did I know then that public transport in Mumbai was quite famed and had no parallel in the other cities of the country. I started travelling alone right from the first month and it was an adventure. I remember when I stood waiting for my bus number 505 in the bus stop, I first saw a 502 and I thought (rather innocently presuming they come in serial order) there will be another two buses before my bus comes, and I was quite surprised to see a 352 instead! The second lesson learned was when a seat got empty just behind me in the bus and I didn’t even realise it. An elderly gentleman called me, pointed the seat out and asked me later if I was new to Bombay. I said I was and he asked me, “How will you manage here?” During the two years of my stay I learnt to keep a hawk eye on every seat and to notice minor changes in posture of the seated traveller and especially if she fidgets with her handbag (you need to be ready to grab the seat when she gets up). Of course, not used to the pollution, I had a difficult time coping with it and I developed bronchitis too. But, I could travel alone at 12.30 at night in the bus. I loved the local trains and as most outsiders who have got into the train will tell you how the first time, they didn’t know how,and they missed a train because of the crowds in rush hour. I missed mine too in Dadar station. But as I realised later, it didn’t matter much as the frequency of the trains were very good. There were days where I just felt like being alone and I took the train, right down to Churchgate, went to Marine Drive, stared at the sea and took a train back to my institute. I loved this feeling of independence, not needing to depend on anyone for going out unlike in my hometown or Jabalpur. It was here that I discovered “night life”, that one can go out in the streets at night as well. Once four of us (girls) went for a late-night movie at Metro, missed our last train, spent the night having tea and loitering on Marine Drive and took the first train back from Churchgate. Our classes and assignments would keep us busy during the day and the only movie shows we could catch up with were the late-night shows. Travelling late at night was never a problem.

I understood the niceness of the Mumbai transport system when I went to Delhi to study further. Delhi had buses and autos and the metro was still to come. I had to be mentally prepared to haggle with the auto drivers for the price and wait for some time before I could get an auto. This was in stark contrast to the Bombay autos in which I would just get in and only after that would tell him (always him) my destination. I had friends who would let go of autos in Bombay as they did not have a good stereo system (spoiled for choice!!). I learnt in Delhi that autos don’t run by meter. I learnt that even though I could loiter around inside the university late in the night or early in the morning, it is not easy to step out of the campus late at night alone. We had to cajole or threaten the bus drivers to drop us atleast at the university gate when we came back after nine from the theatre festival in Mandi House. At times we won and at times the bus driver wouldn’t listen to us and would instead drop us four stops away before his official stopping point inside the university campus. Things have drastically changed for Delhi after the coming of the metro.

Back in my home town, we still rely on private vehicles. When I was doing my field work for my Ph.D. and had to travel to another district regularly, I had to depend on my father for the last mile transport. Come summer, winter or rains, I had to ask my father to drop me off at and pick me up from the bus stop which was a good three km from my house. There was no provision to park my personal vehicle at the station. For the last mile travel to the villages on my field work, I would walk, ride pillion on two wheelers and even cycles belonging to strangers. One of my research clusters had a cycle shop which gave cycles for hire and I could hire a cycle for the whole day and go to whichever village I wanted to, feel the freedom! Of course, there was only one ladies cycle and at least 10 gents cycles and I used to pray that no one has rented it before I reached.

Before Delhi I had also spent two years in a small block in Jharkhand. The whole market area, government offices, bus stand could be easily covered on foot. Buses were there to district headquarters or other towns. People sitting on top of the bus was a common scene. And during the wedding season, when many of these buses were hired for private marriages leaving only a few buses to ply for the public, it was only the women, small kids and very old men who could enter the bus, all the rest would be asked to go on roof of the bus. My male colleagues preferred using their own vehicle as much as they could, especially during this time. My work involved travelling to villages and instead of depending on the office vehicle (which was a prerogative reserved for women colleagues), I got my own two-wheeler and loved the mobility and independence that came with it, to be able to travel through the fields and rivulets with water knee deep. This was also the first time I learnt to ride a bike. But to go back home or to other places, I had to rely on the last bus which reached the station at around seven in the evening and I had to kill at least five hours in the railway station. Similarly, I had to wait till morning in the station when I came back as my train reached by 2.30 am. No wonder, when I left that place and went back again after six months, the fellow selling chivda on the platform and the waiter in the food stall commented that they had not seen me for a long time! Single women travelling late at night are easily recognised and that too in a remote place in Jharkhand. This was also a place where most men won’t allow their sister or wife to ride pillion. A young woman on a bike is rare. And here I was riding pillion on any of my ten male colleagues on any given day and at times they would also sit pillion on my bike!! Yet, this was also a place where Santhali man and woman would hold hands and walk to the market.

In my last year in Delhi, as I shifted from student life to working life, I got used to the sponsored luxury of cabs and flights. I now found it convenient to travel by autos rather than buses for my personal travels. This continued as I shifted to Hyderabad. I got dependent on my husband as we travelled in the city in car. Since his relatives were present in every nook and corner of the city, we travelled across Hyderabad and I became the navigator with google maps. The advent of technology helped me immensely and yet I never got the whole picture of the city, or rather I never tried. I only knew the routes to only the most frequented relatives’ homes. It was when I started working and started travelling by myself in public transport, that I started understanding the city much better (in my first few months of work and two years of being in Hyderabad, someone in office commented,“Why do you always say you don’t know before you even hear about the place?”). Hyderabad had the advantage of MMTS trains, buses, autos and shared autos. Travelling in buses taught me many things, one was fitness—as one has to sprint to the middle of the road to catch the bus or even to get down in the middle of the road and sprint back avoiding speeding two wheelers. It taught me to have a sharp eye especially in stops like Lakdikapul where lots of buses come and one has to be very watchful for the bus number. I also learnt to balance myself (better than how air hostesses are taught!) as the bus twists and turns and suddenly brakes. The introduction of cabs like Uber and Ola has made my life much easier as long as my pocket is full. But the MMTS local have been my preference as the station is a walking distance from my home. Unlike earlier, when I started working and was totally dependent on the MMTS, I realised that one has to wait for half an hour to one hour or at rare occasions even more, as the cancellation and delay of trains are a regular feature, especially in the evenings. Once when I asked the counter clerk why the train was late by about 40 minutes, he said, “Everyday there is a new reason, sometimes the signal is red, sometimes some work is going on—people have also got accustomed to it”. As I travel everyday, I have also met other daily passengers and I get to see the camaraderie of the regular passengers. I have also met some amazing women as they share their food, stories and concerns. One of the major points of discussion in the trains last year was the metro which had not yet started. People evaluated whether it would help in making their travel easier. As the metro started functioning smoothly, many tried out different combinations and some have shifted to this new mode, some have retained back their old MMTS journeys, some are still waiting for new routes to be functional. With more lines opening up in the metro and decrease in fares, there will be a huge change in the way people travel in the city.

As I think back, I realise how women chart out their means of transport based on the availability, affordability and sense of security. Of course, my experiences are through the eyes of a middle class, upper caste, able bodied woman. And yet we see how the public transport influence the way we function, the almost unconscious way we weave our lives around it, for work, leisure or access to the public spaces. Jabalpur hostel never allowed me to venture out without a chaperone and I never knew or understood the city. I am nostalgic about my college and hostel but am indifferent to Jabalpur. Delhi gave access to me inside my huge university campus, and conditional access to the city. I was always alert, always careful and mindful of the time of the day outside the university gate. By late evening, I had to rush back to the safety of my campus. Mumbai on the other hand gave me the space, a good public transport and access to its public spaces and I relished it and still long for that city.

I could appreciate the public transport of the big city, especially the last mile transport as I compare it to my experiences in small towns and villages, where I had to be often dependent on someone. Being in Jharkhand in the small block of Poraiyahat, I realised that I am not the norm. Women in the villages recognised me from anywhere because of my bike. They had a lot of curiosity and questioned about me riding a bike and would often try out my helmet and ask for a ride. For them and the large majority like them, travelling to their mother’s place is the only travel they did or the occasional travel to the block or nearest town to a hospital, or to government offices.

Hyderabad allows me space and time, I do not need to rush back home at a certain hour, I do find transport even quite late. For the first time, being a very regular user of public transport has given me a cosy familiarity at least on my everyday route, and brought in a sense of belonging to and ownership of the city.

The ability to be able to navigate the city and be mobile at all hours gives confidence not just for one’s place but to navigate new places too. It then allows more women on the road and in turn becomes friendlier for them. Being a migrant woman for most part of my life, I am often asked, ‘how do you like the city/place’? My answer often is, as much as it allows me to be mobile and independent.

Mithun Som works at Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies, Hyderabad.

sommithun@gmail.com.