KSRTC Hero

I am one of the people who is of the opinion that, bus drivers are rash, irrespective of where, when and who all of them are same. On numerous trips that I have had to Bandipur or Nagerhole national park, I always have experience of people honking in the middle of the forest ignoring the no horn zone board and scaring the animals.

This trip with 3 kids and 4 adults including my best half who along with myself becomes a kid when he spots animals in forest, was unusual from the beginning. In the Bandipur stretch one can usually spot monkeys and some trained elephants and rarely deer. We wanted the kids to enjoy the forest drive and it was almost 6 PM when we entered the forest gates. Sujesh was already feeling uncomfortable that it will get dark soon and not easy to spot wild animals.

A family of elephants welcomed us and my son was already screaming mama, papa and baby elephant. We spotted many such families, at times we saw peacock with their vibrant colors and wild buffalo staring at the passing vehicles leaving us stunned. There we many deer running and jumping near the roads some scared because of the lights, some casual as this just part of their life. This has been our first trip on Bandipur where we spotted so many animals, maybe it is evening returning home time for them.

The forest has no stopping sign even then people stop by to take quick snaps, and the vehicles behind start honking either to move ahead or to grab the spot for shooting, this is something like two salesman fighting to enter your house even at a time when both are not invited :-)

We were almost reaching the end of the forest stretch, suddenly we saw 2 cars standing behind a KSRTC bus, the road is narrow and almost dark, we have stopped the car and waiting for the vehicles to move, if it was in a city we would have definitely honked, but just as a precaution we decided not to honk or flash lights. I was thinking why the bus has stopped hoping its not a puncture, in fact I was almost ready to start complaining about the state the buses are.

Soon the anxiety to leave the place reduced but the fear of the forest started conquering, with no lights, and the unknown reason left us vulnerable. Sitting inside a closed Innova was definitely better than standing on a bike.

Soon the next fleet of vehicles arrived and started their honking, we are at least 10 vehicles in queue none of us honking or flashing light just trusting the bus driver who was moving very slowly. But there comes the 11th car which starts honking as if all 10 of us are partying in forest.

Finally we got a glimpse of him… The majestic elephant who had all of us behind him. He was walking slowly on the road with full control of the forest, Of course it is his forest and he has every reason to be on that track.

But the bus driver emerged an hero he turned my opinion of bus drivers, I have only respect for him for slowing down his huge vehicle and sticking to his principles by ignoring the honks and flashes from behind, Almost for 30 mts we all followed him, until the elephant moved out of the roads. We crossed the elephant when it again decided to come back to road but unfortunately there were no more KSTRC driver like our hero, so people started honking at the elephant…Since we already crossed before it came back on the roads I do not know what happened, but its likely the animal got scared and moved out..