Never a dull moment

  On the first day of our six day Kolkata sojourn, I was happy to see "NO REFUSAL" sign on the taxi. Four days on , I realised "NO REFUSAL" applied to the customer and not the taxi driver 😢😬😢😬 Local transport is a big pain point for once in  a visitors. Autos ply only point to point with three passengers at the back and the fourth to driver's left on a extended seat. You can take shared auto  from Tollygunge metro to Joka ( just short of IIMC ) but you need to change twice. Yhe autos would not budge a metre from their route. Ola and Uber - minimum four cancellations if you are lucky. Average rate is  Rs 40 plus per km minimum. Yellow taxi guys tell you a "take it or leave it" rate, a few budging a little. Ola / Uber guys would ring and ask where you are headed. If you say you would tell him only after boarding, he would straight away cancel the trip. I found a way out of this. Two / three cancellations on Uber/Ola ( it takes less than ten minutes- ...

There are a large number of buses and mini buses plying in Jaipur. The private mode of mass travel within the city and suburbs is mini buses. The government operates the normal buses for city and suburbs. Recently government has introduced low floor rear engine buses with glass doors in some of the city routes. The long distance buses also have a private government mix with the proportion of private buses being higher in long distance overnight travel routes. The local buses operate from various terminlas across the city while the long distance buses operate from Sindhi Camp bus stand. The roads around Sindhi Camp bus stand are the starting points for private operators. The government buses are never cleaned and washed. They are smeared with dirt and covered with dust and has several layers of it. Even the new low floor buses have become dusty. One gains an impression that punishment would be meted out if anybody drives around a clean government bus. I am sure one would find several em...