Mysuru/Bengaluru: Seven women in saris and dusty flip-flops with jasmine and firecracker flowers in their hair emerged from the majestic Mysuru Palace at dusk after two hours of gaping at its breathtaking opulence.
As they looked around excitedly, one asked ‘What Next?’ Her appetite for travel is boundless.
The Krishna Raja Sagara Dam, just 20 kilometers away, was one option. But instead of taking an auto rickshaw, the women started to walk hurriedly to the nearest bus terminal.
Ever since the new Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka announced free bus travel for women, it has been a non-stop joy ride. The bus is their BFF. Groups of women have been on the road—suddenly remembering distant relatives, going on pilgrimage and palace tours. Overnight, the duty-bound family women have turned into backpackers in saris.
The bus has been the women’s steady companion since they began their 3-day and 4-night trip from their homes in Bagalkote in Northern Karnataka, a 9-hour road journey to Bengaluru. The bus has served not just as a means of travel but even doubled up as a hotel to sleep overnight, as they ticked off temple visits and tourist destinations on their itinerary.
The Karnataka Shakti scheme, launched in June, that provides free rides to women and trans people of Karnataka in state-run general buses has paved the way for an unprecedented and unexpected travel boom and pattern. Women are tasting a new kind of freedom, staking their claim to public spaces and joy unaccompanied by men, and forging female friendships on the road like never before. Free Shakti is stree Shakti. This is no Thelma & Louise, but it is no less freeing.
“All the tensions related to home have gone. I feel relaxed, jolly even! All in all, I’m happy,” said Lakshmi, a woman in her 50s, who had last travelled over two decades ago when her husband was still alive.
Between June and July, the number of women taking the free government buses almost doubled to 19.63 crore from 10.54 crore. By August, the numbers rose to 20.03 crore. And the excitement of women travellers hasn’t waned.
“The rides are free, that is why we came, otherwise we would not have come. We would not have seen so many temples,” Lakshmi said with a wide smile.
This is not the first time Karnataka’s women are traveling out of their homes, but it is the first time when they are truly unfettered. So much so that Veerapaksha Gowda, a BJP worker from Bellary said that the women are aggressively taking over the buses in droves.
One time the door of a bus got broken due to rush of women passengers, Veerapaksha Gowda.
“Children and senior citizens don’t get place to sit on buses. One time the door of a bus got broken due to rush of women passengers. The scheme has been implemented without proper planning,” he said.
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A travelling group
Lakshmi’s feet are swollen, and she hasn’t rested since leaving her home a week before the Ganesh Chaturthi. She is the oldest in the group. She turned her next-door neighbours, most in their early 40s and 50s, into travel companions and planned this trip for two months.
The 58-year-old was travelling from Bilagi village in North Karnataka. Her face was covered with wrinkles, but her smile overshadowed any signs of aging. She had tied her hair in a pony and her nose pin, heavy earrings, gold chain and green glass bangles were all in place. All that complimented her blue and white polyester saree.
Ever since the Shakti scheme was flagged off, Lakshmi has travelled to 10 destinations. She says it has been very different from travelling with her family for weddings and funerals in the last 20 years. She is more carefree this way. As she discovers the wonders of Karnataka, she is also discovering herself.
If not for this trip, I’d be doing nothing much except regular household chores or going to the market to buy vegetables and groceries, Lakshmi
“I loved seeing the Mysuru Palace. It was so beautiful to look at! Not that I want to live in it. But in my lifetime, I have never seen such a beautiful palace,” she said, lamenting that she could have seen more places if she had been more educated.
“If not for this trip, I’d be doing nothing much except regular household chores or going to the market to buy vegetables and groceries. It would be a repeat of cooking food, eating, resting and sleeping. But I’m happy to be away from that routine and exploring new places,” Laksmi said, standing against towering Bengaluru high rises. “Thanks to Siddaramaiah, I was able to see these sights. That is enough for us, we are satisfied.”
Lakshmi gets her late husband’s pension but feels reluctant to travel with her grown son or her college-going daughter. Last month, when her neighbours decided to start the first leg of an all-women tour to Dharmasthala, Kukke Subramanya and Annapoorneshwari temples in faraway districts of southern Karnataka, she said yes instantly.
During the trip, she discovered that her neighbours were actually the perfect travel partners. They are tireless, have abundant joie de vivre but are also smart about budget—having managed their families all their lives.
Lakshmi was part of another group, which made a temple tour last month. Many in the group had also travelled in other packs. Laksmi’s 51-year-old neighbour, Vandana, had proposed this trip to her neighbours. Her niece, Chanda, who works as a beautician in her late 30s and lives in the nearby village, floated the idea to her aunt over phone.
“I said we should go on this trip. I travel a lot on my own for work, and also with friends and family. But this is the first time I’m travelling together with a large group of women,” said Chanda, who is a mother of two daughters.
Except for Vandana, who earns Rs 4,000 as a primary school teacher and Chanda, the other women rely on their husband’s income or pension. Their lower-middle class household forced them to be frugal during the trip. Even buying flowers or having a cup of morning tea was a calculated expense. They didn’t have the luxury to spend nights at hotels or even indulge in street food.
Chanda, with her experience of navigating city waters, wanted to make the trip interesting by adding tourist spots to the itinerary.
“It was a trip wholly planned by us, there were no men involved,” she said.
They didn’t chalk out elaborate travel plans. Their main motto was to enjoy and offer prayers to gods. If a popular travel destination fell on the way, they would add it to their list on the go.
Their travel plan covered eight destinations – Nandi Hills, Kotilingeshwara temple, Nanjangud, Chamundi Hills, Mysuru, Srirangapatna and Bengaluru. The travel-happy budget backpackers in saris have planned the trip to the T—long distances to be covered by bus during the night, temples and tourist spots to be visited during the day, rely on temple food to cut cost and use free or cheap temple accommodations for overnight stays. In a paltry budget of under Rs 4,000-5,000, these women conveniently covered all the places in three days.
“To the city we brought Rs 2,000-2,500, it is all almost over. While visiting temples we could manage one meal in the temple itself. We ate breakfast with our money, but lunch was always at a temple. Here in the city, it is not so. We have to have two meals a day. On top of it, we need to have money for metro rides, autos,” Lakshmi said.
Whenever commuting to a place seemed relatively expensive or was taking more time, the game plan was to ditch the location and move on to the next destination.
They travel light too. Their compact handbag containing a few saris, a shawl and other essentials. They also packed food and snacks in medium-size cartons – roti, chutney, puffed rice and onions – from home as a recourse if temple food was not available. The boxes were wrapped in a big cloth, making it easier to carry them in hands. Lakshmi & co. would dump all their luggage at the baggage counter at bus stands or at the accommodation where they stayed overnight before heading out with their tiny purse, tucked inside their blouse.
It was only a smartphone and a handkerchief they kept in their hands. Two among them didn’t even have phones. Theirs is not a tech-savvy world, the use of phones limited to making calls.
The women were always in a hurry to visit a temple and move to the next destination. But on the banks of a stream near Srirangapatna, three women briefly stopped. They posed for a picture outside a temple. Vandana was one of them, happiness gleaming on her face. She was showing off a red sari that she received from a priest. It was a good way to shrug off the previous day’s disappointment of not making it to the KRS Dam.
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First visit to Bengaluru
The evening before, while the group was waiting outside the Mysuru Palace gate to leave for the dam, Chanda was the first to break the bad news. “Hey listen! auto rickshaw would cost a lot. Let us head to the bus stop and check,” she told the women.
At the bus terminal, her aunt fanatically looked for a bus. A driver said, “Illama (No ma’am), by the time you reach, the entry to KRS Dam will be closed.”
They were dejected but there was no time to mope. The women also gave themselves the freedom to tweak their plans on-the-go. Not everything goes according to the plan.
They set off for their next stop to Srirangapatna, hoping they would find a temple guesthouse to stay overnight. But sleep was the least of their concern. They were even prepared to camp at the bus terminal, which was almost deserted by the time they reached around 9 pm.
They knew their safety was assured if they stuck together. Strange men milled about, some stopped to stare at the women. A stray dog howled all night. But the women said they didn’t feel unsafe. They had the numbers. All seven of them.
At the bus terminal, they found out that a nearby temple ran a guesthouse.
Pooja, who is part of the group, had to convince her husband before going on the adventures. Seven was, somehow, the magic number that assured him she would be safe.
“Well, my husband actually told me not to go. I told him that we are all going together. It’s not a problem if we all travel together. Nobody is going to send us alone. They will not send only 4-5 of us to temples. We are a bigger group that is why we made the plan happen,” she said.
The women were on their way to the big city. It was going to be their first time in Bengaluru.
On the bus to Srirangapatna, they were brimming with excitement.
“Tomorrow we will be in Bengaluru. I cannot wait to ride the metro,” Vandana said.
Fatigue had taken over most of the women as they set to unwind for the first time since the Mysuru Temple visit.
“I look forward to that too! I hope tomorrow won’t turn out to be very expensive. But I want to enjoy seeing the city” Lakshmi responded.
Soon, the women dozed off during the hour-long ride.
They started the day at dawn and were at the Ranganathaswamy temple by 7 am. The temple visit was followed by a small shopping spree at the nearby make-shift shops. It was a rare indulgence they gave into. Some bought mini idols Vishnu, Shiva and Ganesh, others got tiny containers to keep vermillion, the sindoor powder.
After a quick breakfast of tea, sambar and idli at a roadside stall, the group was ready to hop on the bus to see the big capital city. The women were scared, the sheer volume of people, traffic and the infrastructure overwhelmed them. They kept drawing comparisons with their temple travels but enjoyed the novelty of the city life.
Once in the city, their chatter did not stop. Lakshmi was surprised by the number of people and got annoyed with the traffic.
“Aiyo(Oh God!) we still have not reached? We haven’t moved for the last two minutes. I hope we can see all the places in Bengaluru,” she said on the way to the Majestic bus stand in Bengaluru.
Chanda, who had more experience of dealing with the city rush, tried to placate her.
“I want to take you to Chikpet (a famous shopping destination) too, if there’s time,” she said.
The Majestic bus terminal was a pitstop for the group to reach the metro– the best alternative to skirt Bengaluru’s traffic. At the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda metro station, they lined up and squeezed into a small washroom to freshen up. All of them combed their hair and fixed the flowers they were wearing. Some even changed into a different sari.
The city proved to be the most expensive stop so far.
They had to shell out money from the moment they entered Bengaluru—pay to keep their luggage at the bus station, pay for metro train and auto fares. It was harder to get free food in the city unlike during their previous temple visits.
People “spend a lot of money in the city”, said Pooja.
It was the first group trip for the 48-year-old who ran a family of four. The trip was easing her cynicism towards strangers while making her witness the throbbing urban life. She noted the vast difference in ways people spend money in small towns and big cities.
“Well, both (small towns and big cities) are nice in their own way,” she summed up her journey.
Pooja’s back-to-back travels, including her first Bengaluru trip, have given her new wings. Now, she has a bucket list that includes visits to the 12th century Shiva temples Belur and Halebidu, an unfathomable possibility before the Shakti scheme began. She said that now she doesn’t need to depend on her family to go places.
However, she’s aware that it will be a while before she can embark on her next trip. The string of festivals—Ganesh Chaturthi, Dussehra, Deepawali – will keep her busy for the next two months.
“I wanted to see some spots before Dussehra,” she said.
Fiercely guarding privacy
The bus scheme has opened doors for women from economically weaker sections to enjoy travel, a way of life previously alien to them. It has given them a new confidence, voice and peripatetic desires. But the dreaded possibility of losing this freedom is never too far from their minds.
At Majestic Bus Station, five women were waiting to board a bus to Dharmasthala, a popular temple town. They were fiercely protective of their privacy. They didn’t want to be in the limelight, fearing their family’s reaction.
“Whatever little freedom we have got will go away if we appear in the news,” a woman said at the bus station.
Even Lakshmi and her travelling companions requested anonymity. But their worries didn’t stem from family concerns. All the women were from the Kshatriya caste and traced their origin to Shivaji Maharaj’s clan. They feared their community would find out about their political leaning if they express their joy a bit too much. Their Bagalkot constituency has a Congress MLA and a BJP MP.
The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation didn’t keep data on women passengers prior to the Shakti scheme, the overall number of 84 lakh passengers, before the free service, has now jumped to 1.12 crore. Till 14 September, a total of 59,56,87,059 women passengers had used the service across Karnataka.
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Shakti’s unexpected success
The boom in Women’s joy rides in buses is not something even the Karnataka government saw coming. The four transport corporations in the state have a total of 24,000 buses and nearly 1.1 lakh employees. Three months after the Shakti scheme, the government is on course to add 5,000 more buses and recruit 13,000 bus drivers and conductors to keep up with the rising demand.
We expected a 10-20 per cent increase. The number is almost 30 lakh, which means nearly 25 per cent more people are travelling, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy
Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said that an average of 83 lakh people were travelling on state buses in a day before the Shakti scheme. The numbers shot up to 1.1 crore, indicating that around 27-28 lakh more people were taking the public transport.
“But we didn’t expect this much. We expected a 10-20 per cent increase. The number is almost 30 lakh, which means nearly 25 per cent more people are travelling. Now, people have started going to temples and tourist places. We thought it would come down after some time but it’s not coming down,” he said.
The spike in numbers, the minister said, was happening because people were shifting to road transport buses. He said those who previously used autos or took privately operated buses, or metro and even those who covered short distances on foot have all moved to state corporation buses.
Reddy said the government will reimburse the road transport corporations. “It’s not a loss for them but the government will pay,” he clarified.
Many are also apprehensive that the scheme might be withdrawn soon, prompting them to quickly use the service while it is still around.
We will come to power again. That means, the programme will be there for 10 years, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy
“The scheme will continue. Our next election is in 2028 and we will come to power again. That means, the programme will be there for 10 years,” he said.
But Meghna Verma, associate professor at Bengaluru’s Ramaiah Institute of Management, is apprehensive about the Shakti scheme.
Women inclusive transport policy should not be mistaken as women exclusive transport policy, Meghna Verma
In her study, Institutionalizing Gender SMART and Gender Astute Mobility, Verma found that need for women inclusive transport policy “should not be mistaken” as women exclusive transport policy.
“If the government really cares for women belonging to marginalised section, then they must increase frequency of buses and give bus priority lanes so that their travel time is reduced and their productivity is improved at workplace, which will result in improved social time,” she said.
Verma added that providing free services on a limited type of buses isn’t enough to call the scheme successful in the long run.
“The first and last mile connectivity needs to be improved,” Verma said.
The professor said that one way to judge the impact of the scheme is to look at whether the free travel in buses helped middle-class women and those who do white-collar jobs.
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Happiness guaranteed
Back in Bengaluru, Lata is busy looking at the skyscrapers during her first metro ride. It was her first time in the capital and also her first time travelling with the group. Just 2-3 days after the Shakti scheme was announced, she went to visit Udupi and Mangaluru with another group.
Making a living by stitching clothes doesn’t leave her with much money for frequent personal trips. This time, she was hoping to see the dam, which wasn’t possible. But looking forward to more trips in the future, not complaining at all about the uncomfortable bus rides or uncertain night stays.
“Anything more than this will be a luxury,” she said.
The group felt a different energy at the ISKON temple.
“This temple was not like the usual temples that most of us have come across. There were a lot of people and foreigners too. It was fascinating to see so many people,” Chanda said.
They had the free temple prasada but also shelled money to purchase bajjis (fritter) and puliyogare (tamarind rice). As the Bengaluru sky grew overcast, the older ladies of the group left for the bus stand. Chanda and two others went to Sree Kanteerava Studios, which also houses the burial site of Kannada actor Puneeth Rajkumar.
“When we went there, the shooting for a serial, Chandrika, was going on. The actors were on a break because of rain, and I got to click a selfie with some of them. It was the best experience of the trip for me,” she said.
Names of the women passengers have been changed on request.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)