Daewooooosh!

Ever experienced a heart-wrenching feeling through some awesome display of absolute ruthlessness?

Come on, you certainly have.

People spend wads of bank notes to go to Disney World in USA, France and Japan, and wherever else there are such entertainment franchises, to have that kind of thrill on roller coasters, trains, waterslides, ‘space rides’ and such other amusements where things come shamming to smash into you. Luckily, in Pakistan anyone can afford it without the hassle of visas, travelers’ checks, airplane tickets and baggage. In fact, you might not even need to spend any money. That’s particularly handy for the lesser income groups.

Just go out on the roads these days and you will experience it. Free of charge and all day long.

The GTS bus service, when it was in thrift, was infamous for delays and smog and its drivers for being road hogs. Whatever reason they were wiped away from the scene is not the scope of this article. The drivers were certainly Pakistanis, and the company was government-owned too. That’s probably why nobody respected it, or had much hope from it. Therefore, things went along as they always did, and the people as usual humbly resigned to their luck of being from this part of the world.

Once the company got wiped away, our leaders of business background looked forward to imported stuff to come to the rescue, and consequently the perks of the motorway brought about a strictly timed intercity shuttle bus service of international standard, and consequently the intracity bus service too. It is the latter that we will concern ourselves with.

Yes, you got it right: We are talking of none other than Daewoooooosh!

You know those guys in smart uniform and sunglasses who carry Mohammad Ali’s improvised slogan for an attitude: “Stop us if you can!”? Yes, those ones.

Let’s go back to the roads. The traffic is packed: all that potpourri of cars, cyclists, trucks, wagons, vans, rickshaws, donkey carts and pedestrians, many of them vying to get ahead of you just to halt suddenly at some stop right in front of you. Among these is the new addition of those gargantuan Daewoo buses that look like elephants among the traffic; just like in Sri Lanka, Thailand or Cambodia where elephants are part of the road transport in some towns. Only that those elephants are mostly well behaved for their mahout is the one who drives them; and only he knows best how to handle his beasts. If you have never been to these countries and seen an elephant go must (an ecstatic state or temporary madness that the elephants go through from time to time), it’s all right. You don’t have to go there when you can witness the madness right out there on a main road close to your home.

The mahouts of the Daewoo elephants simply DO NOT show mercy. They will drive at near breakneck speed in the thick of traffic and you flasher and honk your battery down, but they will still come hurtling at you.

I once literally stopped my Mehran Plus right in front of a must Daewoo elephant and asked its mahout what his problem was; why he and his like drove like that. He answered casually between sips of water from a glass: “Our vehicles are very tall. We can see the traffic a mile away. You car-wallahs are always getting scared.” And then he smiled.

The electronic timer that you see in the buses is used by the company to time these drivers/vehicles for accuracy in arrival and departure and mobility. So, besides that yahoo spirit innate in these mahouts, it’s also a race against time to be able to provide timely service to the valued public.

The question is, at what expense to the ‘valued’ public?

The company’s buses are good, air-conditioned and inexpensive fare-wise; a great relief to the people particularly in summers. The competition it provided has helped many other companies in the same business to improve their service. This however, does not mean that the company currently in question should not review its policy of ‘timeliness come what may’. The other concerned authorities that run the affairs of the city should ensure sanity. The drivers and the company are supposed to be checked and put to task if they violate road sense. I have seen many an old man be scared out of his wits and brake his FX to avoid a collision with a bus. I have seen many a driver veer his vehicle sharply away toward the embankment or the edge of the road because the bus driver after swallowing or spilling his passengers, simply swerved and took the right lane – at great speed and turn – as if the other oncoming or the already overtaking traffic mattered not a paisa.

All said, one then wonders whether it is the Daewoo elephant that is in that state of temporary madness or it is its mahout! Or the companywallahs who give timelines on OUR roads!

Those supposed to take care of these kinds of matters, are you reading?