The District Transport Office constructing close to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus depot at East Fort, Thiruvananthapuram, reverse Gandhi Park, presents an unassuming facade. The entry to the newly-inaugurated museum wing in the workplace is marked by colored plastic chairs positioned on each side of the pathway. The concrete flooring and whitewashed partitions paint a lacklustre image, opposite to the intimidating picture of a KSRTC bus, affectionately referred to as the aanavandi.
However, contained in the museum, as you lookup, you will note partitions adorned with wood frames and multiwood canvases (a sort of polymer), all painted with vibrant acrylics. The work doc buses from 1938, beginning with the Travancore State Transport Department (TSTD)-owned fashions and persevering with with KSRTC buses, after the Corporation was fashioned in 1965. The museum is about in such a fashion that individuals who select to journey in the KSRTC Swift’s Nagarakazhchakal experience ranging from East Fort can see the art work earlier than the journey.
“The 1938-model bus was driven by EG Salter, or Salter sayippu, the superintendent of Travancore State Transport Department, when it was inaugurated by Sree Chithira Thirunal the same year,” says artist Mahesh Velayudhan. He factors to the portray of a inexperienced bus, plying throughout the Karamana bridge, with a TSTD board, en path to Nagercoil from Kanyakumari, and says, “It is said they released 27 buses of these models initially.”
The bus believed to be pushed by EG Salter, or Salter sayippu, the superintendent of Travancore State Transport Department to Nagercoil
| Photo Credit:
Nainu Oommen
Mahesh, 53, painted 18 works with the assistance of two different painters. This contains 4 buses from 1938, two of which had been painted in shades of gray.
Mahesh Velayudhan on the KSRTC Art Museum at East Fort, Thiruvananthapuram
| Photo Credit:
Nainu Oommen
Mahesh was assigned to work on the museum on the instruction of Thiruvananthapuram Assistant Transport Officer, CP Prasad. Previously, he had painted murals of former state Ministers of Transport on the KSRTC central workshop at Pappanamcode. As a painter on the depot, Mahesh paints vacation spot boards, and creates designs on buses like “the Royal View double-decker buses, which were released in Munnar, earlier this year.”
At the museum, Mahesh has painted the 1977 mannequin double-decker buses with the enduring crimson and yellow color palette. “It was difficult to find the colours of the buses. We figured out what they were by asking retired transport employees,” says Mahesh.
Another 1977 bus mannequin, longer than the same old KSRTC buses, with a peculiar, barely raised portion in the center behind its chassis space is on show, too. “They discontinued it because it was impractical,” says Mahesh.
A 1977 bus mannequin, longer than the same old KSRTC buses, with a peculiar, barely raised portion in the center.
| Photo Credit:
Nainu Oommen
“The 1964 Benz model buses in red and yellow were the first ones to come out after the KSRTC was formed,” says Mahesh.
A 1965-model bus, at present used as a depot van for repairs, spare elements, and towing of malfunctioning buses, is on show with a blue-and-white Venad bus. Named after a medieval kingdom based mostly in Southern Kerala, Venad remains to be one of the vital generally discovered buses in the State.
The work embrace depictions of pink buses for girls, and a ring-road service bus (a bus following a round route) referred to as the Rajdhani bus, that are not in use.
The Rajdhani buses had been launched in 2012 April, however was quickly discontinued following monetary losses.
A portray of the Kaveri boat providers, which was managed by KSRTC until 1985, when the Department of Transport adopted it straight, is on show too.
Kaveri boat service which was taken over by the Department of Transport from the KSRTC
| Photo Credit:
Nainu Oommen
Mahesh says there are 4 extra work to be added to the gathering, which he hopes to complete in a month.
The artist can be hoping to color personal buses, which had been in existence earlier than the state transportation division buses. “One of the first buses was the size of an extended autorickshaw. Since I have got my hands on a picture of it, I would like to draw it soon.”