ST

Using the ST buses can be a real pain in the ass, mostly because the seat has been sat on so many times that the cushioning has become wafer thin and rock hard, but also because



1) People bring in luggage, sit on it, after carefully placing the said luggage in the most painful manner over your foot



2) Sometimes, the said luggage stinks, god knows whats in there, today, I had to endure a foul fish smelling something



3) The conducters are rutheless, changeless and shameless. They will take money and not give back change, push and shove you to get past, and scream at you for standing in the wrong place no matter where you are standing, and step on you and give YOU angry looks



4) The driver pretends the narrow pothole ridden gullies to be the Mumbai-Pune expressway. The result is plenty of visceral readjustment.



5) They don't stop at arbitrary stops in between



Have to endure this every friggin day. Thane to Mahape, or Khoparkhairane, whichever is easier to pronounce (the conducter also stresses on the right way to pronounce Mahape... although the spelling isma-huh-pay, its apparently MHA-PA) - resulting in disasterous consequences like getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and having to walk back all the way from Vashi, almost till Ghansoli. I have a shrewd feeling that most of Navi Mumbai is owned by the Ambanis. The Dirubhai Ambani Life Sciences centre and two other such institutions stretch all the way from Ghansoli to Vashi...



The resulting long walks sometimes allow me to spot some NewBombay sights, like: