After the BEST bus strike, two photographers have set out to document snippets of the daily commute in Mumbai using an Instagram account
Although our life has been a summation of bus rides, our fondest memory is of one we took in the rain, a year ago. In class, our college professor had started uttering random numbers, and assigned them to each one of us. After a wave of confusion, he surrendered and revealed that they were BEST bus numbers.
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We had to board the bus, alight, and write a travelogue while peeking outside the window. That was our first lesson in observation. The second is perhaps Aslam Saiyad and Gopal MS's Instagram account called BEST Stories Collective — a visual encyclopedia of bus travel in Mumbai where the photographers look beyond the outside world, by profiling people and objects that build an experience.
"I've been commuting in BEST buses since childhood, and I've never seen the staff as passionate about their work in other cities. After the strike in January, I wanted people to be aware about our buses. Commuting was very difficult before they came by.
Now, the fleet will be reduced by 137 buses in April, so Mumbaikars should be grateful," Saiyad, 40, says. So, Gopal MS of the blog Mumbai Paused and he decided to start a collective. Saiyad adds, "I first thought about hosting a photography competition on the page, but that would remain a one-day event with beautiful pictures of buses, which is not what I want. Once this page takes off, we'll be adding more people to the account and will even exhibit our work."
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