The tragedies of a BEST bus commuter

It has been quite a period of time since I have been using the BEST bus service for my work commute. It will be quite a period of time I keep using the BEST as it is the best and shortest way to get from Dahisar to Powai.

While the experience until now has been bittersweet, it is more bitter than sweet. I think I'll better sum it up nicely rather than rant on and on and never reach the end of it.

The tragedies of a BEST bus commuter:

1. Waiting for an hour for a 489 at Dahisar Bridge.
2. If one doesn't come up after an hour, going to Borivli station and waiting for an AS-461.
3. If even the AS-461 doesn't come along, going to the eastern side and seeing a goddamn 489 pass right in front of your goddamn eyes!
4. Getting into a 10 am 489 bus from Dahisar Bridge under heavy rain and with many, many people around you.
5. Sitting in a ladies' seat purely by mistake, only to be rudely driven out of it by an angry aunty and worse, be educated in decency and courtesy towards women.
6. Getting into a seat beside a smelly UP guy, who abuses so much into his Nokia N73 China model that it needs an aunty to stop him.
7. BEST TV at its worst and dishing out the same old heady mix of "Chandan ka meethha paan" ads and "Body & Soul" shit all the time.
8. Getting into an argument with a bus conductor who you think is timid, but who turns out to be a foul-mouthed fighter cock.
9. Waking up from a good window-side sleep, only to see yourself drenched in the rain.
10. Discovering that the open window is jammed and the bus is overcrowded, so there is no place for you to stand - you have to sit in the rain!
11. Your 489 bus shutting down right in the middle of Aarey Milk Colony.
12. Standing all the way from Dahisar Bridge to Powai in a wildly speeding and swinging 489 bus - so you feel as if you are going home from work, and not vice-versa.
    
13. Your wild 489 bus skidding down a slippery Malad flyover and narrowly escaping a major accident - so now you have to get into another bus to Powai from a crowded bus stop on the frigging Western Express highway.
    
14. Feeling quite nice when your bus skips many stops to help you reach work faster, then feeling quite differently when it skips your stop as well.
    
15. More than 5 of the above tragedies happening on the same day, driving you completely nuts.

Five months into this "BEST experience", I have seen a lot - I have seen multiple tragedies on the same day and yet survived to tell the tale. You get to see a lot more.

• A very old woman tries to get into the bus. The bus, as usual, is in a hurry and the conductor rings it - result - the woman has a really bad fall. The bus stops, the conductor gets shouted at, the driver gets called in, then both of them almost get beaten up - that was by half the people on the bus. The rest just want the mess to get over - they need to get to work. The old woman is helping herself up, all by herself.
• A guy sees a girl and realizes she needs a seat. He requests another guy to vacate the ladies' seat he has occupied and the girl gets a seat. Meanwhile, the other guy wakes up from his sleep and starts talking loudly to the first guy.
  "Why the hell did you wake me up?", "Can't she stand?", "Can't you see I was sleeping?", "Is she your girlfriend or *****?", "Ladies can also stand, why do men like me need to stand for *****s like her?". The good guy just says,"Shut up, you m****c***!!". The crowd laughs - after all, who doesn't like a good show for free!