Bengaluru commute stories: Long rides on metro, buses spark new friendships, informal communities

Bengalureans are making unexpected connections during their commutes, over shared interests

Long commutes on public transport in Bengaluru have given rise to small communities and unexpected friendships.

Complete strangers strike up conversations with each other over shared interests after seeing what the other is reading, watching or listening to. These conversations lead to longer discussions and form accidental communities.

Graphic novels

Sanjana K, a law major at BMS College of Law, shares with Metrolife how a stranger recognised the manhwa (Korean graphic novel) she was reading on her phone while heading home from college on the metro.

“The genre of manhwa I read is quite rare, and I was engrossed in a psychological horror manhwa when a girl approached me and excitedly mentioned its title, as she had just finished reading it,” Sanjana explains. They talked for so long that the stranger — who has now become a close friend — missed her stop. They continued their conversation until the last stop, where they exchanged social media handles and have kept in touch ever since.

Some friendships cut across all age groups. Kushal Shetty, a second PU student, was sketching an anime character while travelling to Tin Factory from Yelahanka on a BMTC bus. He was on his way to participate in a cricket match. An elderly man seated next to him initiated a conversation about his artwork.

“He said he used to paint a lot when he was younger, and we spoke until we both got off at Tin Factory. He even watched my match for a bit before he left,” Kushal recalls.

Romantic fiction

Sarrah H, a social media manager for a football club, recalls an experience while taking the metro home late one evening. She was reading a book from a popular romance novel series when she noticed another person on the train reading the first book of the same series.

“I was halfway through the last book, and then suddenly two more people got on the train, holding up the second and third books of the series,” she recounts.

The four of them began discussing the series, and eventually, another person chimed in, saying they had heard a lot about the author and the series but hadn’t started reading it yet. The excitement of the four girls convinced her to give it a try. “The whole experience was surreal,” Sarrah adds.

Cards on the train

Similarly, Anupa Gnanakan has had several experiences befriending strangers on her commutes. She recounts one from a couple of months ago, when she was travelling with her family to Belgaum via train. They were playing cards when her cousin asked the group of friends in front of them to lower the volume of the video one of them was watching. “I don’t know why, but the whole carriage burst into laughter after that,” Anupa chuckles.

“The boys took it in good spirits, and we spent the next 45 minutes playing cards together until they got off at their stop,” she adds.

While they had gotten well acquainted, they have not been in touch since.