Aanavandi: The Elephant Ride

The morning after

I was among those caught in the great traffic logjam of the 2010 Washington, DC, Snowmageddon. Left the office at 4:00 PM that February evening, spent 11 hours in a standing-room-only commuter bus, and reached home at 3:00 AM, driving over 20 inches of snow on the road. As harrowing as the trip was, one thing stands out in memory: the two Malayalis on the bus endured the ordeal well, taking all the hell breaking loose around us in stride. But there is no mystery to this.

Icicles

I hadn’t met the guy standing beside my aisle seat before, but he was recognizably Indian, perhaps a Mallu. About 3 hours into the journey, I offered him the seat, volunteering to stand for a while. He gratefully accepted. A little later, he whipped out a smartphone and started talking to what sounded like his son, instructing him about homework and telling him to obey his mother. The conversation continued with his wife, more genially. It was all in Thiruvananthapuram-accented Malayalam, the “entharappi?” kind. (Sorry, there ain't no English words to translate this. “How’s it going mate?” doesn’t even come close.) When he was done, I turned to him and, with what might have looked to him like a pulicha chiri (sheepish grin) said, “Malayali analle?” (Malayali aren’t you?).

We had a quick catch up conversation, the techi informing me that he was talking to his family in Kerala. Cool! Meanwhile, the bus was stuck just outside downtown Silver Spring in the massive traffic jam. Snow fell unrelentingly, cars lay strewn all around having slipped off the lanes, and part of the town lost electricity from downed wires. Hordes of men sloshed around in the snow trying to unknot mess by pushing cars up a hill. People on the bus were restless. A guy in the back yelled a series of instructions to the hapless driver on how to drive in the snow. The lady seated in front of me appeared distressed. She kept repeating “we won’t reach home tonight, we will be stuck here for ever, what are we going to do?” Finally, she looked at us and said, “You are calm. How are you so calm?”

Aanavandi heading to Vagamon
(Credit: ksrtcblog.com)

The Malayali and I exchanged knowing glances. As if to finish his thought I said “Aanavandiyil yathracheythittundengil ithonnum onnumalla!” (If you have been on the elephant ride, this is nothing!)

* * *

There are many theories why Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses are called aanavandi or the elephant ride (strictly translated elephant vehicle, but I like ride). One is that the name comes from the pair of elephants from the State seal embossed on the KSRTC logo. But other theories are equally plausible. The buses themselves are lumbering giants, plodding along the roadways, paying little heed to what else is on the road. When they speed up, much like a tusker in madham (heat), aanavandis have great potential for mayhem, with little liability. And the sight of them arrayed in the KSRTC bus stand, with a touch of imagination, resembles the caparisoned elephants lined up during a pooram (temple festival).

(Credit: ksrtcblog.com)

With the aanavandi it’s a love-hate relationship. There are plenty of reasons for the hate, built on a lifetime of missed appointments, sordid bus stands, and unionized staff down to the imperious peon behind the customer service counter. The source of love is nebulous. That the competition, offered by rickety private buses, was weak, maybe one reason. The private buses employed the kili (the conductor’s sidekick), whose antics, particularly around attractive female passengers, forever sullied the enterprise’s reputation. Private buses fought for passengers, employing every trick in the book, including the kili's rather undignified route announcements: “Guruvayoor, Guruvayoor, Guruvayoor; Mundoore, Kaiparambu, Kecheri, Koonammoochi vazhi, Guruvayoor, Guruvayoor, Guruvayoor.

The scenic Udumbanchola
(Credit: allkeralatour.blogspot.com)

The aanavandi crew cared little. No route announcements or rounding up passengers here. Being a public enterprise, revenue wasn’t a concern. Aanavandi took its own sweet time to show up—or not, as was often the case, halted 50 yards past the designated bus stop and sped off, boarding half the waiting passengers. Like a coy love interest, this don’t-care attitude added a certain degree of hard-to-get appeal. To top it off, the Corporation held a trump card—a monopoly over long-distance routes. Whether for a romantic outing or an urgent family errand, there were few other options if you had to travel from Ollur to Udumbanchola.

* * *

My experiences with aanavandi were forged early. Every once in a while, traveling from our tharavadu (ancestral home) to Thrissur, my mother took the circuitous Mupliyam route. The only available bus was an aanavandi. And boy did it stand us up! On more occasions than I care to remember, the bus cancelled—a no show. When it did show up, it was going in the opposite direction at the appointed time! That meant an hour more of wait until the bus went to Mupliyam, turned around and came back. Luckily we had Karthavinte peedika (a friend’s shop), where we sat on a bench and caught-up on the latest happenings around Nandipulam (the village).

Who needs doors?
(Credit: ksrtcblog.com)

My mother was no exception; elders seemed to prefer aanavandi over private buses. My father had the aanavandi schedule by heart for short trips from Poochatty to Thrissur. He ignored private buses packed with unruly "concession" students paying a fraction of the regular fare and waited patiently for aanavandi. Aanavandi returned the favor, preferring quiet office goers over noisy college kids. It admitted concession students only if they got a pass from the Corporation headquarters in the town. This extra hurdle dissuaded most students except good looking coeds going to St. Mary’s college or the Vimala. Which is precisely why I made the trip to the Corporation HQ and procured the said pass. For about a year, I tried this tack, taking the aanavandi to Thrissur town and catching the college bus back to the varsity—a route that looks like an upside down U on the map. This transit pattern added an hour to my college commute, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. The girls on the aanavandi weren’t a least bit impressed. I ended my pursuit and switched to the lonely and shorter ride on a bike to the college.

My connection with aanavandi though, wasn’t all about missed buses or futile pursuit of college beauties. There is a deeper family connection that accounts for my fascination with aanavandi: Raviammaman, my uncle, whose ambition it was to become a KSRTC conductor, a job he ultimately secured and cherished for years, ably serving the passengers along the Thrissur-Vellikulangara route.

Raviammaman was a KSRTC aficionado, especially fond of those long-haul “Fast Passenger” buses headed to obscure destinations in the Western Ghats. If he caught a “Kattappana-Mananthavady Fast” to travel from Alwaye to Amballur, you were sure to hear him crow about it. Amballur was by no means a regular stop for a long-distance bus. But Raviammaman had his way with the crew. He’d cosy up to conductor, exchange gossip about the employee union’s wrangling with the Corporation for a higher Dearness Allowance (a perk), and convince him to make an extra stop at Amballur.

Thiruvananthapuram-Mananthavady Express
(Credit: ksrtcblog.com)

A trip I took with him from Thiruvananthapuram to Thrissur is seared in memory. By the time we polished off a meal of masala dosa and coffee at the Arya Bhavan and walked over to the Thampanoor bus stand across the road, it was getting late in the evening. But the late hour didn’t deter Raviammaman. He was hellbent on taking the “Express” bus. Compared with the red and beige-painted Fast Passengers, the Express buses were painted green, their seats had headrests, there were fewer of them on the road, and they charged a higher fare—not exactly attributes that called for extra adulation. But I was pretty young, in sixth grade I think, and had little voice. I followed him through the crowds as he darted from one bus to another looking for the Express. When he found one, it was through the dreaded mountainous MC road, not via the placid coastal Alappuzha. No matter. Raviammaman, he must have been in his mid-twenties then, had a smile of satisfaction on his face that said, “exactly what I was looking for.”

When we started boarding, it quickly became clear that this was going to be one long night’s journey. The bus was standing room only. We were pushed to the front, near the driver’s seat, which Raviammaman viewed a privilege. I wasn’t tall enough to reach the overhead handrails, so I held on to a stanchion, resting my back against a seat corner. As the bus sped from Kottarakkara, Adoor, and Pandalam on the way to Kottayam, the bumpy ride tossed me around like a pinata hung on a pole. The bus’s headlights cut bright swaths through the pitch darkness, dancing about in unison when the driver switched from low beam to high beam to warn the oncoming traffic. Out the windshield, I watched in terror the bus screeching past overloaded lorries, careening dangerously close to vertical drops. I was sick to the stomach and sleepy. My knees buckled when I nodded off, jolting me awake every other minute. Twisting and turning past Muvattupuzha, Perumbavoor, and Kalady, the bus reached the plains of Angamaly and continued on the wider and level NH-47.

It was close to 3:00 AM when the bus made an unscheduled stop at Ollur. Raviammaman tapped me on my shoulder and pushed me out the door.

“Why did we get down here?” I asked. “I thought we’d get off at Thrissur and take a bus to Poochatty.”

“This is the easy route. It is a short walk from here to your home,” he said, avoiding looking at me.

When I insisted with the questioning, he admitted the real reason for cutting the trip short at Ollur: He had run out of money!

So, after a 9-hour red eye journey traversed standing up in the Express aanavandi, all we had to do to get home was an hour and half’s walk on foot at 3:00 in the morning. But Raviammaman had it figured out. Here’s how he put it:

“Athineda? Evidennu korach nadanna Padavaradu. Athukazhinja Anddi Company. Ennittu valau thirinja Kuttallore. Kuttellorennu paadathekkirangi neere nadanna Variyathethi!” (What’s there to it? Just a short walk from here we reach Padavaradu. After that it’s the cashew nut factory. A turn later we reach Kuttanellur. From there we walk down to the paddy fields and a short walk later, we reach home!) I didn’t know Raviammaman had looked up Lao Tzu for inspiration: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Little wonder 11 hours seated in a stranded bus was a cake walk.

* * *

Oh my! Sleek.
(Credit: ksrtcblog.com)

But listen, that’s all in the past. Aanavandi has moved on. And gotten hip too. There’s a website, a fan blog (quite a good one), and an Android app. Double decker buses and AC low-floors adorn its fleet. Admittedly, there’s bit of the long-standing issue with revenue. Hey, which public entity in Kerala isn’t a white elephant?

Recently, the esteemed Kerala High Court had the gall to suggest KSRTC be dismantled and turned into a private corporation. Nothing would happen if KSRTC is shut down and liquidated, the court allegedly claimed.

Really? Folks, if you have been on the elephant ride, tell me how that would make you feel.

You can count on one fan being unhappy. Very unhappy.

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[Author thanks ksrtcblog.com for all ksrtc pictures as credited.]