When the tell-all story of Mumbai’s blood red or vermillion, considering that sindoor is the popular word after India’s operation against terror hotspots in Pakistan, buses is written, it would have to characterise the decade of 2015-25 as the one in which the city lost its beloved and reliable transport systems.

The sight of the red buses of the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) trundling along on the city’s roads has been a marker of chaotic normalcy through rain and riots, its drivers were forces of authority in the buses they captained, and conductors were mostly the epitome of how to keep calm in the midst of burgeoning crowds and noise even as they urged standing passengers “pudhe chala” (move ahead).

This July would mark the beginning of the centenary year of the BEST bus services in Mumbai; the first motorised bus ran on July 15, 1926. Originally, the Bombay Tramway Company Limited, set up in 1873, presided over horse-drawn tramway service, then the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company launched electric trams in 1907 and double-decker trams a decade later, before the bus service in the following decade. The BEST has a rich and glorious history that’s Mumbai’s pride and the envy of other cities.

We should have been preparing to celebrate this unique sustenance system of the city, second only to the city’s suburban railways, transporting more........

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