One Red Bus, One Movie, and a Journey Back                                 in Time

                                   Sometimes, days are like never before or after.

One Red Bus(KSRTC) Journey

Just when you think you are finally going to have a day without much stress, somehow you end up having more. One of those days was today.

The original plan was simple. I was supposed to travel to my hometown, but work had other plans and the whole idea came to a full stop. Finally, I decided, Okay, let me travel tomorrow early morning.

You know how it is when you work in IT. What you plan and what actually happens are usually two different things.

So, the next day—that is today—I started with a very optimistic plan. Leave early, reach early.

With that confidence, I travelled all the way from Whitefield to Satellite Bus Stand. In my mind, everything was already planned. I would reach there, get an Airavata or one of those luxury KSRTC buses, sit comfortably and travel to my hometown.

But destiny had a slightly different idea.

The moment I reached Satellite Bus Stand, I could see the crowd. Actually, I had already got a small hint while waiting for the auto itself. There were too many people heading in the same direction, and somewhere in my mind I thought, Okay… today may not be that easy.

The moment I entered the KSRTC Satellite Bus Stand, for a few seconds, I felt like I had gone many years back.

Back to Those Red Bus Days

There was a time when this red KSRTC bus was almost my weekend partner.

Friday night, start from Bengaluru and reach Hassan. Spend the weekend there. Monday morning, catch one of the first buses, sometimes around 4 AM, and come back to Bengaluru.

That was the routine.

And festival days? That was a completely different experience.

Bus stands would look like some mass public gathering. People everywhere. Bags, families, children, shouting, conductors calling destinations and everyone waiting for that one bus.

The moment the bus arrived, getting a seat itself was an achievement.

You had to judge where the bus would stop, move along with the crowd, somehow get inside and capture a seat. Sometimes just entering the bus itself would make you feel you had won something.

I was also one among them.

Standing there today after so many years brought all those memories back.

Of course, I have travelled in KSRTC buses many times after that, but slowly it had become mostly Airavata, Sleeper bus, Ambari  and other luxury buses. The normal red bus had almost disappeared from my travel routine.

But today, after all my attempts to find a luxury bus failed, there I was again, standing in a queue for the red KSRTC bus.

And what a queue it was.

It felt almost a kilometre long.

Still, I stood there thinking, Okay, somehow let me get into the bus first.

By the time I finally got the ticket and settled down, almost one hour had gone just standing in the queue.

The bus would not start until everyone was issued tickets, so there was nothing much to do except sit and wait.

That is when OTT came to my rescue.

A Movie I Was Not Planning to Watch

While scrolling through the recent releases, I came across a Malayalam movie that had been getting quite a lot of attention—Bethlehem Kudumba Unit.

I have always liked Nivin Pauly.

There is something about his acting that connects naturally. Especially in these simple, feel-good movies, he somehow carries a special vibe. He doesn’t always need those larger-than-life scenes. Even a normal conversation or expression works for him.

His previous movie had also worked well for me, so I thought, Fine, anyway I am stuck here. Let me use this time.

And the movie started.

What a movie.

The story itself is actually quite simple. Ashley moves into a new neighbourhood and slowly gets to know Justin, an older unmarried neighbour. From those slightly awkward meetings, conversations, family members and people around them, a relationship slowly begins to take shape. The age difference between them becomes part of the story, but the movie doesn’t try to turn everything into some huge drama. It just lets these people talk, react, misunderstand, laugh and slowly understand each other.

That is where the writing worked for me.

Sometimes you don’t need a story with ten twists. Give a simple story to the right people, write the screenplay well and allow the characters to behave naturally—that itself can become such a good movie.

And then I realised it is from Girish A.D., the director behind Premalu. Fahadh Faasil, Dileesh Pothan and Syam Pushkaran are among the producers through Bhavana Studios, and the movie has already gone beyond ₹300 crore worldwide.

Then I understood why there was so much talk about it.

But there was one particular scene I simply loved.

There is a point where the heroine proposes, and Justin is this kind of character who doesn’t always immediately say everything running in his mind.

He goes away.

Then he comes back in his red car and asks her to get inside.

And now the conversation starts.

Hold on…

I am not going to tell you what happens.

Go and watch it.

But watch that scene carefully.

The proposal, the silence, the conversation inside the car, those expressions, that small smile…and somewhere in between, the car gives that small jerk towards the right and becomes steady again.

Such a tiny thing.

But I loved it.

Nothing overdone. No unnecessary buildup. The conversation, expressions, awkwardness, small smile and love—all packed into one scene.

For me, that was one of the best moments in the movie.

Meanwhile, I Was Still on the Road

By the time the movie finished, I looked at the time.

11:30 AM.

And I was still somewhere on the Mysuru Expressway.

That itself tells you what kind of traffic it was.

This is an expressway where vehicles normally fly at 90, 100 or even more. But today there was this long line of cars moving somewhere in their 30s and 40s.

For everyone sitting in those cars, I am sure it was frustrating.

Strangely, for me, something nice happened.

After a long time, I was sitting inside a red KSRTC bus, next to the window.

And maybe because the bus wasn’t zooming, I actually started looking outside.

The World Outside the Expressway

World outside the Expressway

Most of the time when I travel on this road by car, the focus is different.

Road.

Traffic.

Speed.

Overtake.

Reach quickly.

At 90 or 100 kmph, everything outside the expressway just passes like a background.

Today, at 30 or 40, that background became visible.

There was actually a world outside this expressway.

Small roads running alongside it. Houses that I had probably crossed many times without noticing. Fields. Shops. Trees. People standing outside. Villages sitting quietly while thousands of vehicles rushed past them.

Maybe I had seen all of this before.

But I don’t think I had noticed it.

I was also surprised by how much had changed around this route in the last seven years. Places which once looked empty now had buildings. New shops had appeared. Roads had changed. Some familiar stretches were almost unrecognisable.

Funny thing is, sometimes travelling slowly shows you more than travelling fast.

And somewhere in between all this, I also started observing the bus itself.

Even the Red Bus Has Changed

A lot has changed in Karnataka Sarige too.

The red bus I remembered from years ago was much more basic.

Now there are better doors, CCTV cameras, speed monitoring, SOS switches and several other safety improvements.

The bus has moved forward.

Technology has moved forward.

Infrastructure has moved forward.

But one thing, unfortunately, still needs some improvement.

Us.

The way we keep public transport.

You could still see people leaving wrappers, bottles and other waste inside the bus. Some things were simply thrown around without a second thought.

And that made me think.

These buses, trains and public facilities don’t come from somewhere else. It is finally our own tax money coming back to us in another form.

We complain when buses are dirty.

We complain when trains are not maintained.

We complain when public places don’t look like the ones we see in some other countries.

But somewhere, we also have to ask ourselves a very small question.

How are we treating what we already have?

Maybe the government can provide a better bus.

They can install CCTV.

They can add SOS buttons.

They can improve safety.

They can build expressways where we can travel at 100 kmph.

But keeping the seat clean, putting a wrapper into a dustbin instead of below the seat, and treating a public bus like something that belongs to us—that part cannot come through technology.

That has to come from us.

What started as a frustrating travel day somehow became a little different.

A cancelled plan.

A long journey from Whitefield.

A crowded bus stand.

A red KSRTC bus that brought back memories.

A surprisingly good Malayalam movie.

And a slow journey on a road where I usually travel fast.

Maybe everything did not go according to my plan today.

But because it didn’t, after many years, I travelled again in that familiar red bus…and noticed a few things that I had been passing without seeing.

Note: The movie references in this story are based purely on my personal viewing experience and opinion. I have kept the discussion mostly spoiler-free. Movie names and characters belong to their respective owners.