Mumbai Lens: The Blue Retro Bus

Mumbai’s BEST buses are known for their trademark red coloured buses, But only when they are not covered with advertisements, or have their AC buses painted a hideous purple. But one day, about two months back, I saw a new colour on the BEST bus. A lovely new, fresh, colour.

29 January 2011: An open deck, double-decker, BEST tourist bus outside Jehangir Art Gallery

I fell in love with the electric blue colour, and of course the double-decker itself—there are so few of them left. The electric blue colour on an old BEST bus was so fresh and cheerful, that many people actually stopped for a second look. And some like me stopped to take photographs.

I actually found this blue better than the red of the BEST buses. What do you think of this blue? Should BEST change from its trademark red? Do tell.

Mumbai Lens is a photographic series which, as the name suggests, is Mumbai-centric and is an attempt to capture the various moods of the city through my camera lens. You can read more posts from this series here.

22 thoughts on “Mumbai Lens: The Blue Retro Bus

    1. Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Vyankatesh. I actually like the red myself, as red is my favourite colour and in a way it is also tied up with BEST’s identity. But the blue has a freshness that the red lacks.

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    1. Bangalore has special buses for ladies? Cool ! But it is uncool and so predictable to have pink coloured buses for the ladies. Come to think of it, Pune has pink coloured Mercedes Benz buses, and those are not just for the ladies 😉

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  1. Yes, I like the blue. Maybe the tourist buses should be painted blue and the regular passenger buses red. After all BEST is synonymous with red!!!

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  2. ये डबल डेकर बस ऊपर से खुली कब से हो गयीं। ये नीला रंग आँखों को तो भा रहा है।

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    1. Welcome to my blog, Manish. This open roof blue double decker bus is a tourist bus and that’s why it is different from the regular red BEST buses. These days there are hardly any double decker buses left in Mumbai.

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  3. That registration number — MRL 6000 — adds to the charm.
    Also interesting is, that you managed to get a title for this art-sy photo within the photo itself, right above the bus 😀

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    1. Hello AJ. A warm welcome to my blog and thank you for stopping by and commenting. The capture was a lucky one as the bus had started moving. I realised the art-syness of the picture only after I posted it here. 😀

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  4. I have seen these open deck buses but this is the first blue bus. Last night I was at BKC with my sister for a quick bite at Le Pain Quottidien and on our way there, we saw a normal red double decker parked there. I was surprised. On closer inspection, I saw that it was fitted with wings made of steel and stood there as a permanent exhibit by some Shetty guy. And the piece was named ‘The Flying Bus’. I thought ‘I wish we had flying buses really in Mumbai’. But then, when there is hardly any space to just drive, how will they take off and land? Of course since I believe in’Every problem has a solution’ we can have these deckers with a helicopter like propellor on top 😉

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