An annotated screening of Social Life of a Bus

Although many of us rely on buses to move from one point to another, we usually do so without taking the time to reflect on the relations we have with other commuters, the bus as a material artifact, or the bus system. This film is an effort to instigate this reflection by taking seriously the quotidian in the operation of urban buses.

Grounded within an intellectual matrix formed by “the intertwinement of infrastructure, informality, and mobility” (McFarlane and Vasudevan 2014: 256), this film investigates the quotidian politics of infrastructure and the (im)mobilities of everyday life, by focusing on bus transportation in Bengaluru.

Buses in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), a growing metropolis of 10 million people in India, are a particularly interesting location because of some recent challenges. Although, buses in the city shoulder a major share of people movement, mobility choices are being shaped by the rapid rise in automobility, which in itself is influenced by policy priorities in favor of massive, government-subsidized, infrastructure investments (such as metro, tolled elevated roads, signal free corridors, flyovers) geared towards private automobility.

Against such a context, focusing on three aspects in the everyday mobility of buses — safety, equity, and accessibility — this film proposes that we pay more attention to them since buses are our ticket to safer, more equal, and more sustainable cities.