Circular bus ?!
When the bridge next to Periyar (central) bus stand was closed for rebuilding, the vital link to Arasaradi & beyond were cut-off.
As a result, the detour from periyar bus stand to aarapalayam bus stand is a little long by city standards (about 3 kms). And there are two completely different routes from periyar to aarapalayam. Thus circular bus routes (like gandhipark-to-gandhipark route in Coimbatore) became a reality.
The bus routes are numbered C1 & C2 (unlike using routine numbers as in Coimbatore) ply from Aarapalayam to Aarapalayam in opposite directions. They soon became quite popular. One of the reason is, it crosses through the new shopping area, the wide bye-pass road. The bye-pass road which traditionally devoid of city bus traffic suddenly bestowed with a convenient mode of transport. A welcome relief is that the buses are new, distinctly coloured (to differenciate from regular buses) and neat!
Buoyed by the success, two new circular routes from maatu thavani bus stand to periyar bus stand were introduced as C3 & C4. These buses have a different colour scheme from C1-C2. It seems to be a bigger success.
These buses are curiously named as ‘Vatta Perunthu’ (circular bus or literally – ’round bus!’). Madurai does have a unique way in creating tamil words for english terms. Credit cards are mentioned in shop adverts as ‘Kadan Attaigal’ (literally – loan cards) which is perhaps more apt than positively sounding ‘credit cards’.
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