Events
Bengaluru’s Bus Stories: Launched
Launch of Bengaluru’s Bus Stories book
Date: 05 May 2025
Venue: Ashirvad Centre, Bengaluru
Bus Stories, or Bussina Kathegalu, a bilingual book, was released to the public on 5th May 2025 at an event in Ashirvad Centre on St Mark’s Road, Bangalore. The event was attended by project stakeholders, the public, civic group representatives, journalists and transport-related bureaucrats, which included a BMTC representative. Following the launch, a live reading session was arranged for the audience. The young researchers who collected the stories narrated the context and read aloud the stories. Alongside, they reflected on their training sessions at ISEC and their experiences on the field. In the last session, a discussion was organised with our stakeholders – Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike (BBPV), Samvada, ISEC and Utrecht University, along with other attendees. This discussion focused on the future of bus transportation in Bangalore and ways in which equity can be furthered.
The event marked a fruitful completion of an endeavour started in 2022 to document the everyday affects, affinities and interactions of people with the public bus services in Bengaluru city conducted as part of the EQUIMOB project. The Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru (ISEC), Utrecht University, The Netherlands, Bangalore Bus Prayaanikara Vedike (BBPV) and SAMVADA (Bangalore-based NGO) joined hands to document these stories. Four enterprising young researchers travelled with bus users and personnel, spoke with them and gathered these stories. With their efforts and together with commuters and other stakeholders, this book intends to bring families’ and the government’s attention and affection back to the buses of Bengaluru!
The book was widely covered by top new media outlets and the links to the coverage are provided below.
The Hindu
The Deccan Herald https://www.deccanherald.com/india/karnataka/bengaluru/double-deckers-window-seats-bengaluru-bus-rides-evoke-literary-nostalgia-3526013
The Indian Express
The New Indian Express
The Federal
The News Karnataka
Varthabharati
Earlier in the week, a copy of the book was handed over to the Managing Director of BMTC, which will be placed in BMTC’s in-house library. The open-source book, of 52-pages is available in Kannada and English, Bengaluru’s Bus stories_2025 (click here).