Mass Transit

10:00 an old man is walking down the street. He has a stick in his hand suggesting that his legs are incapable of holding his weight for long. With each step he takes, lines on his face become deeper revealing the intense effort he is putting in just to walk. He is wearing a clean white shirt which is not tucked in and dark brown trousers. He must be somewhere around 60 to 70 years old. Had it been earlier say 8:45 and had he been younger (read more energetic) you might have deduced that he is going for work. But now, he might be visiting some other old man nearby.

10:05 he has walked through half of the street. It took him twice the time and I don’t know how many times the effort it would have required by a young man to cover an equal distance. 10:10 Finally, he has reached the end of the street on to the main road. Traffic is whizzing past him from right to left. He looks towards the right. The vehicles passing by him are moving at a fast speed with the interval between two vehicles not long enough for him to cross the road. It seems that he is waiting for the right moment to cross the road.

10:12 He is still there. He looks at his watch. No, he is not going to cross the road. He is waiting for someone. May be someone is meeting him here or picking him up.

10:14 His anxiousness is increasing. Drops of sweat start appearing on his forehead. He again looks edgily towards the vehicles coming from the right. Whoever he is waiting for is going to be late.

The minute hand moves one tick forward. Its 10:15. He immediately looks up again. A smile appears on his face. Whoever he is, has arrived and exactly on time. Rather than wait for it to come near him, he does something unusual. He faces left so that the traffic is now arriving from his back and going forward. He turns his head backward looking at the arriving vehicle. It seem as he is measuring the distance and velocity of the vehicle to derive the ETA where he is standing. It is not someone. It is the W-11 bus. He raises his right hand indicating that he wishes to board it. Then he takes the stick from his left hand into his right. His grip on the stick becomes firmer. All of a sudden, he has regained his youthfulness. The lines on his face slowly diminish. It was as if he had stored away some energy, like camels store water for traveling in desert. He bends his knees a little like getting ready for a jump or sprint. The bus suddenly swerves from the fast lane to the slow lane and the driver presses the brakes, though not completely, just enough to reduce the speed to 20mph. The old man looks as if he had just drunk water from the fountain of youth. He is looking 15 years younger somewhere around 50 to 55. As the bus moves past him at 20mph, he suddenly takes two steps forward to match the acceleration of the bus and jumps on the door of the moving bus. As soon as he sets his foot firmly inside the bus, he has again become an old man of 65-70 years. It is reminiscent of clock striking 12 in the Cinderella story that took all the magic away.

This is W-11; a bus service that for a few moments makes you younger taking away 10 to 15 years off your face.

There was an article a few months back in Dawn titled “Brides on the road”. It was about the minibuses plying on the roads of Karachi. However, the writer did not do justice to the subject restricting herself to the beautification work on the minibuses - the use of shiny metal strips a.k.a. chamak patti ka kaam. Well there is more to the minibuses than just the beautification work. However, W-11 is the best in class when it comes to chamak patti works. It is said that the cost of beautification in W-11 is more than the cost of chassis and engine. There are also 10 to 20 thin flexible sticks springing on the head of the body giving the impression of the crown of a peacock. If you see three of four buses coming from a particular side, the one appearing the most beautiful and with best crown is definitely W-11. The owners and operators are fond of beautifying their minibus. But their fondness is restricted only to beautification and maintenance. The engines of all the minibuses are old Mazda T3200 of late 1960s. These buses are banned in Punjab due to high emission; however they are the masters of the road in Karachi. W-11 even has a monopoly on its route and their operators carry a lot of clout. Whereas coaches are plying on all other routes in Karachi, W-11 people have not allowed a single coach route permit to be issued on their route. (Coaches are for express travel as they have minimal bus stops).

W-11 travels on the jugular vein of Karachi. It starts from Industrial Area i.e., North Karachi then passing through the residential areas of F B Area, Liaquatabad, Jehangir Road, enters the Commercial District of Saddar followed by the Financial Cum Commercial district of Jodia Bazaar and Cloth Market, finally stopping at the Keamari Dockyards. Hence it travels on the roads used by half the traffic of Karachi. Its efficient running is vital for a day to start in Karachi. It transports majority of the working class to their offices and back. It is the most well known bus service and in order to make their strikes successful; the political elements (mostly MQM) used to burn one or two W-11 vehicles the night before. The operators didn’t dare take out their vehicles on the strike day translating into a successful strike because quarter of the working population could not reach their workplaces.

A distinguishing feature of W-11 is its maintenance. It is the only well kept minibus on the road. The railings and rods used for holding on while standing in the bus are rust free. The floor is kept well greased sometimes even over greased. When it starts or stops with a jerk, many people slip but this happens occasionally. The seats are unbroken and covered. The height of the roof is just right. In contrast, other minibuses plying on the road are rusty. Just the use the railing to get on the bus will leave rust on your hands which will spoil your shirt or trouser near the pocket. Near the pocket? Well, you’d have to put your hand in the pocket for taking out a tissue Duh! In these minibuses (barring W-11), usually the seats are broken or sometimes very close. This requires you to use a special technique for sitting. First, you stand at the leg space (or foot space as it is too small). Then swiftly placing your butt on the chair, simultaneously lift your knees. The legs will come to rest at a 60 degree angle as the leg space provided is so small that you cannot keep your legs horizontal. Your knees will be fixed against the back of the head rest of the front guy. This is know as the ’N’ position which is quite obvious. As the height of these buses is small, you stand in ‘f’ position that is you bend your head to face the feet in order to stand. At least, in W-11, you are saved from this ordeal.

W-11 is not just a bus service, it is an institution. Even as a peace loving and a docile citizen you acquire number of skills, which you will not need unless you are a spy or a terrorist. You learn how to jump on a fast moving bus, a technique that might come in handy in your escapes, for jumping on fast moving trains and trucks. The learning curve, however, can be divided into two levels. Level one is easier one. Here you realize from a distance that the bus is not going to stop for picking you up. You start sprinting slowly beforehand like in a relay race. As the bus accelerates pass you, you grab on to the railing and jump on it. While it might appear easy on paper, it is quite difficult to pull off in reality.

Level two, is very difficult technique to master and I have seen very few people accomplish it successfully or even try it. This happens when you decide to get on a bus as it is whizzing past you. This requires split second calculations regarding velocity of the bus, its direction, wind speed, direction of the wind and where you are standing in relation to the moving bus. As the bus speeds past you, you jump on it at a particular angle and speed. This task requires enormous skill and experience. A small miscalculation and you might hurt yourself. If you jump too early, you might hit the side the bus which as you know is beautified by metal strips, injuring yourself like having been attacked by a pack of wolves. However, jumping right on to the door but at a wrong angle or velocity will give you shock that will shift the bones - making you hunch and leave your eyes in a permanent squint. The most perilous consequences are of jumping too late; you will not only miss the bus, but land just behind it into the discharging smoke. Not only your face and clothes be blackened by the billowing smoke, your lungs will be filled with smog and lead, and you might even get struck by a car trailing the bus at a fast speed.

Level 3 while not officially recognized is very precarious, as I have seen nobody use it except myself. It was not easy to master. I had my share of shocks and temporary eye disorientations rather I still get them sometimes when I can’t pull it off rightly. What I do is as the bus moves past me, I turn at my feet quickly trying to match the speed of the bus by standing at the same place. Then I grab on to the railing and jump aboard. This technique is very hazardous and till now I have not seen any one do it. A small miscalculation and your arm may get pulled off from the shoulder joint. I have had very close shaves twice.

Value added service is not a new concept for W-11. It has been there since early eighties. W-11 has not restricted itself to core activity of transportation. Rather it also known for its service - entertainment. People don’t travel on W-11 just for transportation, they have various cheaper alternatives. They also get on it for entertainment. Rarely is there W-11 bus where the cassette player is not running the latest Indian songs and during holy days (Ramadan, Muharram) qawwalis. For short distances, traveling on W-11 is uneconomical because it charges a flat rate, which is exorbitant for very small distances. However, a few of my friends who don’t live on its route use it when they are in its vicinity, for extremely short distances. Once my friend and I had to go from Jama Cloth to Nishat Cinema hardly fifteen minute walk. He jumped on to W-11 and beckoned me to do so. I said to him that the distance is very short so why is he taking the bus, and even if he has to take the bus why this one. We had many cheaper buses plying on this route. He said to me and I am not lying, “It is easily available to you rather you use it everyday so you don’t know its worth. Ask those who are not blessed with homes on the route of W-11. We have to travel daily on boring buses. I want this trip, short it may be, to be real entertaining”.

The success of W-11 also established another industry. A recording label took out Indian song cassettes substituting film dialogues between songs with slapstick comedy. These labels were called FM-W11 and the humor mostly consisted of parodies of call-in on FM channels. 7 or 8 volumes came out and then the fad died out.

The timeliness of W-11 is well known as also indicated in the anecdote narrated above. It took me 45 minutes exact to commute from my home to workplace. If I had to reach office by 8:45, I leave home 7:55. The bus would arrive at around 8 and would drop me at my destination at 8:45. However, if 2 or 3 W-11 are racing together to pick up most passengers, which happened usually 18% of the times, the time would be reduced by 10 to 15 minutes. However, 77% of the time it would take me exactly 45 minutes. The remaining times, the bus would be late due to low maintenance or a traffic police scuffle. You can easily check the batteries of your watch whether they are running at optimum levels or not. If my watch said that it took me more/less than 45 minutes to reach the office without any incident occurring, there was 77% probability that the batteries need replacement. We did not need an atomic clock in Pakistan to set the time. W-11 serves that purpose efficiently. This relieves the government to employ resources on more productive projects – like building atomic bombs.

One of the traits of W-11 drivers is that they develop within themselves a vengeance. This vengeance is much stronger and retaliatory than that of infamous elephant. An elephant remembers the offender and may wait even a lifetime to avenge the injury (Well that is what I heard). However, W-11 driver are not that patient. They avenge instantly. It usually happens, when 2 or 3 W-11 are racing, one of the driver might break/dismantle the side view mirror of our W-11. Blood will slowly, rather rapidly seep into our driver’s eyes and he might follow the culprit driver even to hell to break his mirror. This is an exaggeration. Nevertheless, he will follow him until he breaks his mirror even if that means jeopardizing his own life and that of his passengers, breaking all the traffic rules or even leaving his route. It is certain that while he is continuing his chase a few pedestrians might undergo NDE (near death experience) missing a fatal injury just by a few millimeters, literally speaking. When he has had his revenge i.e., broken the side view mirror of the offending vehicle, both the drivers will park their buses on the roadside or even in the middle of the road. They will get out and yell at each other. Passengers who are by now terrified and exhausted will urge both the drivers to cool down and continue with the journey. The drivers will then return to their driving seats swearing at each other. The buses will kick off with a jerk and the passengers will keep reciting holy verses till they reach their destination. (This does happen occasionally)

Traveling in W-11, like getting on it, requires technique and skill. It took some time and skill to develop software that deliver WYSIWYG. Similarly certain amount of skill is required for GOLTSWGI (Getting Out Looking The Same When Getting In) in W-11. If you are an amateur, you might embark on for attending a wedding reception in a suit but when you disembark it would appear as you went there as a mechanic for looking after the diesel generator in case the light goes out. Defying all traffic and safety rules W-11 is packed to the door with no place to move in the bus. In the aisle, hardly one man can stand, but usually two men are standing with their butts touching rather pressed against each other and their penises pushed against shoulders of the sitting passengers. In this jammed space, believe me, the bus-conductor makes his way from the front to back collecting payments and then back again. It is a good thing that trousers have two legs otherwise if it were like a skirt, by the time your reach destination, the zipper of the trouser would have been covering your butt. In earlier days, when I reached the office my colleagues used to play a guessing game to determine the characteristics of my fellow travelers. One day upon my reaching the office, my colleague said to me, “You were traveling in a packed bus. First you sat at the aisle seat and then moved on to the Window seat or vice versa. When you were at the aisle seat there was a gentleman sitting on your right and at left of you a laborer was standing in the aisle with his erect penis (I have a fair complexion) just touching your shoulder. Prior to that, when you were standing a mechanic was standing to your right. While getting on or off your tie got stuck in some tool or something.” He was 100% correct. I asked him how he knew. Was he traveling in the same bus? “No”, he said laughing. “It can’t be a guess”, I said. “Well, believe it or not, it is”, was his reply. “How did you get it so right?” asked I. “It is easy. Your clothes tell the story. The movement from the aisle seat to window seat is explained by the marks on the knees of your trouser caused by the rub of the knees against the front seat. The gentleman was sitting at your right is explained by a faint scent coming just from your right shoulder and arms. The penis of labor was touching is explained by a dim stripe on your shoulder about half inch high and one and one half inches long and giving a very faint smell of sweat, cement and urine. Had it been a leg or body touching your shoulder than it would have been a large blot of 2 to 3 inches radius and the smell of urine would be absent. I can guess the mechanic was standing right of you as your elbows are having a faint mark and smell of oil and grease caused by rubbing of elbows when both of you were holding on to the rod to keep the balance. Your tie got stuck on something is explained by two things. It seems a bit elongated from the middle i.e., it is out of shape. And there are strangulation marks on your neck caused by pull of tie.” He was right cent per cent. “Don’t worry. You will learn to avoid this with the passage of time”. And I did, though it took a long very frustrating time. Now I GOLTSWGI and make educated guesses about the fellow travelers of other colleagues of mine who haven’t mastered the skill yet.

Usually there is a quote attributed to an Australian pilot (or at least that’s what I heard) that when the plane had landed, the pilot announced to the deplaning passengers, “The safest part of your journey is over. Now starts the most dangerous part. Drive safely”. In Pakistan, commuting is very dangerous, as everybody disregards traffic rules. The major reason is motorcyclists. However, they are danger mostly to themselves. The reason being that if you hit the motorcycle or the motor cycle hits you, 76% of the time, the greater of the injuries will be sustained by the motorcyclist and there is an 83% chance that these will not be minor injuries. However, W-11 is even more dangerous. It’s not only a danger to the vehicles plying on the road; rather the pedestrians are also not safe from its wrath. Newspapers used to be full of the stories of their precariousness:

KARACHI, November 10, by our staff reporter: Today W-11 set a new record by running over 11 pedestrians while picking up only 7 between the Liaquatabad No. 10 bus top and Teen Hatti Bridge. Details are that W-11 (Bus no. 8179) driven by Darya Khan s/o Samandar Khan had a scuffle with his conductor just before the fateful stop of Liaquatabad Number 10 where this gory episode begin. The conductor was reprimanding the driver that he is not driving properly so as to pick up greater number of passengers. The bus was half empty. The driver in the fit of rage, from that point onward drove in the fast lane swerving suddenly left to pick up passengers. This required most of the passengers to use Level 2 strategies to get on the bus. However, people being mostly used to Level 1, could not get aboard and were run over by it. In this way he picked only 7 while running over 11. As per terrified eye witnesses, 10 of them used Level 1 strategy when it definitely required Level 2. However, one unfateful prospective (late) passenger did something unusual. He was turning circles and then suddenly grabbed on to the railing of the bus (he was trying Level 3). The bus tore off his arm and he died of excessive bleeding. After venting his rage, the bus came to stop at Teen Hatti bridge as the passengers became hysterical and the traffic police motorcyclist without caring for his own life brought his motorcycle in front of the bus (he was stopping it for taking a bribe and was unaware of the whole episode but alls well that ends well). The driver was apprehended and handed over to the Crime Wing. ( he will get off in 4 or 5 weeks when the people’s anger has cooled down). This is a new record. The previous record was held by Garam Khan s/o Ghussa Khan as he overran 9 passengers while picking only 8 when he went into a rage between Saddar and Jama Cloth in October last year. (Parenthesis are mine).

To an outsider, W-11 and other minibuses of this kind might represent a culture of Karachi, a fabric in our tapestry but for the Karachiites they are a real pain in you know what like a contaminated yarn in an exported cloth that finally results in its rejection. (The metaphor does not fit here but I had spent quite a few hours (okay minutes) thinking it up so I am going to use it anyway).