The tragedy of Bus 0963

When the listing appeared in newspapers about a play on the Mahbubnagar Volvo bus tragedy in which 45 passengers were charred to death, people were naturally curious.

But Fire vs. Bus No. 0963, by the Bengaluru-based production company,  Underdog Entertainment, surprised in many ways. For one, it was based on the real-life experience of the play’s writer and protagonist, Chaitanya.

“The idea behind the play came because I missed that bus to Hyderabad,” Chaitanya explains, adding, “I usually catch a bus near my home in Bengaluru and Jabbar Travels is very accommodative so I was going to board it. But something came up that day, and I eventually missed Bus No. 0963.”

But after a week of what-ifs, the full extent of the tragedy hit him and that’s when Chaitanya realised how his life would have played out, had he been on the bus. And that’s exactly what the play depicts.

Abhishek Varma, actor of the group, recalls, “All I knew was that Chaitanya had boarded the bus to Hyderabad that night. I had no contact after that. So when my mother was watching the news the next day, she was shocked. But when I called Chaitanya, I found out that he had missed the bus.”

The play starts with scenes between different characters getting ready for the journey. Post the accident, it shifts from happy scenes to just memories. Had he got in touch with the family members of the victims to research for the play? “No. I did try to get in touch with a family but I couldn’t get through,” says Chaitanya.

Given that it was a tragedy, wasn’t ticketing the play a case of making money out of the incident? Chaitanya says, “We’re not trying to make money out of a tragedy. We have to ticket our plays because it is our way of surviving.”

While the main aim of the play was that we don’t forget the lives lost, the play does succeed in making one feel perhaps a tiny bit of what the families would have. Despite this being the group’s first “serious” play, (the rest being adult comedy acts), they’ve done quite a commendable job.