KSRTC acknowledged the connection and decided to retain this service.
BHPian sarathlal recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Live to Drive – an emotion we TBHPians hold close to our hearts. And here’s introducing Mr Ponnukkuttan, a KSRTC bus driver who shares the same emotion.
As part of KSRTC’s recent fleet and route revival, a new era of buses under ‘SWIFT’ (Read more on this here) was supposed to replace a set of routes run by the traditional interstate buses like the Super Expresses and Super Deluxes. One such route that got axed was the Changanassery Velankanni Super Express. And as soon as the news of the same surfaced, its driver, Mr Ponnukkuttan could not hide his emotions and social media was filled with his emotional farewell to the machine he loves to the core.
Now, KSRTC in an unexpected move decided to acknowledge the whole-hearted relationship its employee is having with the bus he drives and decided to retain this service!
The man:
The machine:
The emotion:
Although much of the attention turned towards the incident, this particular bus is not alien to those who follow the ‘aana vandi’ (Pet name for KSRTC buses by its fans)
Few older videos of the same bus in action.
Here’s what GTO had to say on the matter:
That is just so cool! Every man loves his machine, be it the fellow riding a basic electric scooter, the dude in his Thar, the industrialist in his Ferrari and the cabbie in his well-kept black & yellow Santro. I love my rusty Jeep as much as Max does his Red Bull.
A sweet reminder of that. Incredible story, thanks for sharing!
Here’s what BHPian hellmet had to say on the matter:
I can relate so well to the emotion. Just last year I handed over the keys of our family’s M800 to the MS dealer in exchange for an S-Presso. This was the car that saw me through my childhood and took me to so many places. I broke into tears handing over the keys and kept bidding the car goodbye until I left the parking area.
It was still functioning terrifically but it had to be replaced as we desperately wanted a car with an AC. If only I had another parking spot.
Here’s what BHPian Malyaj had to say on the matter:
The feeling is understandable. Truck drivers too are quite attached to their trucks. Perhaps more than bus drivers are.
This reminds me of a day, long back in school (I think almost 30 years back). I was on staff room duty (or something like that, I don’t recall what it was called). Every student had to do staff room duty once a year, where they would help out the teachers with admin related stuff. That day I was with the Admin in charge of the school who was listening to the sob story of a school bus driver.
“Meri minibus mujhe wapas karo”, the driver said. He was adamant he wanted to drive the Minibus and not the recently inducted, fancier bus. The ‘Mini bus’ was a crap bus actually (I used to travel on it), but very chuckable and I could understand that the driver wanted it back badly.
Here’s what BHPian jeeva had to say on the matter:
I can relate to the emotions of Mr. Ponnukuttan.
During my schooling days at Ooty, there was this Hino engine’d erstwhile Cheran bus (now TNSTC) doing its round from Ooty to Calicut. Nobody really knew the name of the driver, but he was loving addressed to as “bhai”. The bus was pretty popular because of his clinically neat driving skills and timing. He never used to brake on those curvy roads of Nilgiris, and I still have no clue how he managed it, but the bus was absolutely vibration-free. You could only hear the subdued engine humming away. I have later experienced this level of mature driving style only with our ex-servicemen drivers. Come to any vacation, I used to stand behind him just to watch him drive and be in awe, looking at the way he used to rev match, shift gears, and work his magic with precise steering inputs. It was such a pleasure to be a passenger in “his” bus. Bhai used to maintain this bus so meticulously that he and his regular passengers used to celebrate the bus’s birthday together. Good old days!
Yeah, for some, their machines aren’t just another piece of engineering, but a part of their family.
Keyword: A man & his emotional connect with a decade-old KSRTC bus