Yeshti:If I have to take the references from our Mythological tales, The Gods too use vehicles to get around. For example, Rat is the vehicle of the Lord Ganesha, Nandi is the vehicle of the Lord Shiva, Lion is the vehicle of Maa Durga, and so on.
To get to this heaven, called Konkan, the common vehicle is 'S.T.' (State Transport), more popularly pronounced as 'Yeshti'!
Many few people might be knowing that the first bus of MSRTC was flagged off from Pune to Ahmednagar in the year, 1948 and it was a blue and silver-topped bus.
The color of the body of the bus was changed to 'Red' in the year, 1967.. which is still continuing and in many occasions, its called as 'Laal-Dabba'.
Though the further improvements continued from the inclusion of semi-luxury class bus (known as 'Asiad', which was introduced in the year, 1982) to the latest additions of luxury Air conditioned Volvo buses (known as 'Shivneri and 'Mahabus'), the glory of 'Yeshti' remained where it was..
Before the Journey:
I still remember, my dad use to book the 'Yeshti' tickets 15 days before our school's summer holidays starts and we used to eagarly wait for the day to board the bus.
A lot of activities were involved before we start heading towards our village in Konkan, which generally used to begin with the 'Packing'.
There will be suitcases, cloth-bags, handbags, etc.. filled with our clothes, sweets for our Grandparents and the neighbors, some gifts for the kids in the neighborhood, few indoor games & even a First-aid box too! (Now, that's what I called 'playing safe', huh!)
On the traveling date (generally night time), our parade used to start, each of us carrying a bag or two, depending upon his/her's 'carrying capacity'. A hired taxi used to help us reach the 'S.T. Depot', either at 'Mumbai Central' or 'Parel'.
The moment you enter the 'Depot', you become the part of the 'crowd' who either is waiting for their 'Yeshti' or in the hurry to board the 'Yeshti'.
If you find a lot of people running behind a bus along with their spouses, kids, parents, suitcases, handbags, etc; you can very well conclude-Yes, the baby has arrived.
After multiple confirmations of the sign-board, which generally indicates the root of the bus (Mumbai-Chiplun, Mumbai-Sangameshwar, etc), people starts jumping on the narrow door of the bus.
Generally the ladies take the lead to enter the bus and men try to get the heavy luggage on the rooftop carrier of the bus.. (I think that's a fair and smart distribution of job profile, right?).
Once the conductor is convinced about your tickets and the 'number' of passengers traveling, you get the permission to board the bus.. Goshh, I can't express in words, how i used to feel once I sit on the reserved place!
'Ting Ting'.. Yess... there you go! The Journey has begun.. and my heart is already in my hometown.. singing.. ''Mamaachya gaavala jaauya.. Mamaachya gaavala jaauya''!
