It all started from an old photograph of the bus on Route number 315. That is when I started grasping the true amount of baggage that these numbers carry with them.
I just commented on some old facebook photo and bang! It was in everyone's news feed. Someone fired a tirade about how severely he hates the bus. Several others reminisced about how, now sitting with an H1b waiting for the green card, they once sat at the bus stop waiting for this bus. Old habits die hard, eh? And so much more. I had my own memories that I ascribed to it.
It was like our memories are neatly classified and filed into cabinets and each one has a number.
Yes! The Bus Route number. I will call it Bus Number henceforth because that's what I've always called it.
Let me just try to pull out those cabinets for a peek and see what I find.
110 - VIT. It's like the four years on engineering come rushing at you when you think of 110. And that is a vast volume of memories.
212 - Adarsh Classes. Class tenth coaching classes. Some parts of Bombay Talent Search and some irritating times. Also Ruia a bit but those are a different set of buses. The bus that goes to Manjar's place.
1 - The route of the bus being similar to that of 212 I can almost group the two but I wont. Bus no. 1 also reminds me of the time I went to CST for some aptitude test and I returned home to find that a very close friend's father had passed away. 1 & 212 also bring to mind the era of IIT JEE coaching -another period of significance.
86 - Deserves a mention for the 86 effect. The largest number of cute girls would always be on the 86 and no other bus. The route is what merits such passengers I guess.
85, 27, 521 and more importantly 315 - All these relate to the two year Ruia Junior College Stint. 315 had great strategic importance know only to a select few. But the bus even today inspires stories, rants, smiles and random blog posts.
33 - This takes me back to the MBA prep days at Juhu.
66 - The double-decker to Lamington Road reminds me of my electronics project and my attempts at autonomous robotics
83, 84 - These remind me of my first relationship. Funny how these are quarantined in this cabinet. I've never even been a frequent commuter on these.
But you may argue that I can do this only because I've lived my life in a relatively small part of a small city called Mumbai. And I agree. It is just symbolism that you use to number the cabinets. It could be different for you. But I bet that you have at least a few bus number memories.
You still disregard this as not a foolproof system of organising memories. I agree again. In fact, I don't know what to do with these last two years of B-School in a faded reddish building near Churchgate.
I have an idea though.
I think I'll name that cabinet : 11:37 Virar Fast
