If it walks like a duck, …

… and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.

It was a little more than five years ago, November 2007, that Delhi commuters got to ride on DTC buses that did not rattle their backbones. It started with DTC introducing a dozen or so fancy looking low-floor buses painted green. Then came the air-conditioned red buses. We were movin’ on up!

The low floor buses looked elegant but not svelte, being so big and wide; moved ponderously yet fast enough for Delhi roads; were so smooth and silent enough to sneak up on you; have wide doors that made getting into an out of a snap – thanks in part to the one-step entry / exit; and looked new (they were new, of course!).

There were enough teething problems but these were either sorted out or people adjusted to them (more of the latter).

Simultaneously, the bus stops transformed themselves – bigger, gleaming stainless steel structures, tiled floors at the level of the doors of the low-floor buses (only someone forgot to tell the drivers to sidle the buses up to them!), seats for people waiting, bus route boards (inappropriately placed), access ramps, and of course, hordes of advertisement boards, not to mention the symbol of “disabled friendly”, a wheel chair prominently displayed.

It became less of a torture waiting for a bus (but if you boarded a bus with tinted glasses, you are at the mercy of the merciless).

Wow, was Delhi going places or what!

The bus fleet became bigger and we saw a host of red and green buses of DTC on Delhi roads. Commuting was not made exactly pleasant but it did become bearable over the next three years.

Then the authorities decreed something called “cluster buses”. I think this was all a big bluster! The cluster-bluster is a gift to the private sector. Where there is a private sector, there are corners to be cut. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me pull myself back, just a little.

To make them stand-out from the green and red buses that are indeed fading in their looks and novelty factor, the new ones are painted in shocking orange.

Now, I come to the first sentence in this post, all about ducks walking and quacking.

If the green and red buses are ducks, are the orange buses ducks too?

They do look alike, don’t they, so full of glass (not tinted) and such? They do. The orange buses move almost as ponderously as the green and red ones. As far as I have seen them plying, they too are silent, thanks to the nice packing of the engine, I suppose. That is, in a sense they walk and quack just like the older low floor buses.

Here comes the catch. The orange ones are not low floor. They are designated something like semi-low-floor (I do not know whether the hyphen between “semi” and “low” is appropriate; if it is not, excuse me for living!), if you can make sense of that. I will help you with that, through the pictures below, contrasted against the genuine low-floor buses.

There are steps at the doors in the orange buses. We need to think on this a little. How did the true low-floor buses come to have a low floor? The engine got shifted to the back. There was no need to lift the floor above the drive shaft running from the engine in the front to the wheels at the back. Presto, low floor! But, it costs money. The private operators balked. So, a compromise was arrived at. Keep the engine in the front, let the floor be above the drive shaft, but just put a lot of glass and install nice CFL / LED lights inside, just simply jazz it up! Make the bus look similar to the original low floor buses. People will swallow it, no fret.

Oh My God! Just imagine a wheelchair being drawn in to the orange semi-low-floor bus! 

Now, connect back to the bus stops, with the prominent wheelchair symbol. 

As it is, the green and red buses do not stop anywhere near the curb and the wheelchair symbol carries no meaning. But with the orange buses they are more deeply violated. Even if the drivers are conscientious enough and bring the buses to the edge of the curb, the wheelchairs cannot get in. Then, should we not remove those symbols?

No. You see, the orange buses walk and quack like the red and green buses; they just do not allow wheelchair bound passengers (who wants them?). As they have satisfied the first two conditions, they are low-floor buses and by that definition, and by that definition alone they have the right to be identified as disabled friendly! Damn the disabled!

The semi-low-floor bus is a low-floor bus! Add red and green and you get orange!

Now you understand: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck!

Raghuram Ekambaram