There is something about the Esplanade bus terminus. Perpetually busy, crowded, chaotic, with its knot of buses, Chhota Haathis, Tata 407s, bikes and cycles, rickshaws and vans. It has the buzz of a village fair with people pouring in and out, speaking different tongues, carrying all shapes and sizes of luggage.

Buses leave from here for the South 24-Parganas (Bakkhali, Namkhana, Kakdwip, Gangasagar), for the North 24-Parganas (Basirhat and Barasat), Malda, Murshidabad. They go to Suri in Birbhum, Bagmundi in Purulia, Krishnanagar in Nadia, Durgapur, Asansol, Jamuria in Burdwan, South Dinajpur’s Balurghat and North Dinajpur’s Raiganj. They also ply between Calcutta and Darjeeling.

Then there are buses leaving for Jharkhand and Odisha. Bhutan government buses too ply from this location.

According to Dipu Pandey, the general secretary of the long route bus workers’ union, 900 buses weave in and out of Bengal from this hub each day.

The Esplanade bus terminus is a bit of an enigma. When it actually came up or when it became an important landmark, it is difficult to pinpoint. Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, who is a film expert, talks about its cinematic representations — Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Satyajit Ray’s Jana Aranya (1976), Mrinal Sen’s Akash Kusum (1965).

Nilina Deb Lal, an independent heritage consultant and a researcher, cannot tell when exactly the bus terminus became apart of the city’s landscape. She says, “But its location appears organic rather than designed as this is a natural junction between east-west movement and north-south movement.”

The bus terminus was also the spot from where the tramways started operating in 1880. Possibly that is how Esplanade came to be the nerve centre of the city’s transport system.

The terminus became functional only once the state buses started plying and that happened in 1948. This finding dovetails neatly with heritage activist Amitabha Karkun’s theory that the Esplanade bus terminus came up after Partition. He says, “Those were the years when the refugees were coming in. The state government needed to create jobs and this terminus was probably one of the places where many people found employment.”

The smoke from a chulha might bring tears to your eyes but it is the first sign of the bus terminus kicking into life at daybreak. Commuters gather around the shops even as the shopkeepers rinse glasses, making soft, clinking noises. Zzzzz, the flour pours out of bags and containers, about to be prepped for parathas and luchis.

As the day matures, the crowd starts to thicken. Private vehicles, yellow taxis and white appcabs drop off passengers on the ad-joining road, and drive away honking loudly.

It is not just buses that congregate at the Esplanade terminus. In the mornings you see vans loaded with sacks or cardboard boxes lurching around. “These are all clothes from Howrah’s Mangla Haat. They will go to Burdwan,” says the driver of one such van. Someone else will be sending dry foodstuff to Durgapur. A man arrives with packets from a private courier service company. He says, “The cost of booking luggage on the bus is far cheaper than sending them by train.”

Outside the ticket counter,Malati, 55, is waiting to board a bus to Murshidabad. “It is my hometown,” she says. It is a five-hour journey but to Malati, it is too far away. “My youngest daughter got married last month and now lives in Kakdwip. Leaving her behind...,” the sexagenarian does not finish the sentence.

At another end of the terminus, a man is setting up his shop. Large pots of curd and a jar of chire or chiwda. “It is hot. People would love to have lassi,” says the shopkeeper without looking up. A little later, a “pattieswala” arrives on his cycle and opens his big aluminium box. “Grram patties, cream rolls, bread, biscuit...” he chants and advertises.

The terminus is throbbing with stories of departures and arrivals. Unlike Malati, Sajal Das, 26, looks buoyant as he boards the bus to Murshidabad. He works as a construction worker in Mumbai. “I come back once every six months,” he says, adjusting the Bluetooth gadget around his neck. The bus station in Esplanade is a blessing for the 2,000 migrant labourers of North Bengal who work in Mumbai. “We cannot buy train tickets in advance. So we rely on the bus service,” he adds.

Different journeys, different objectives. Naresh Mondal, who runs a grocery shop in Asansol, is on his way back after picking up a fortnight’s supply; Manas Adhikari is going to Hili Border in Balurghat after his check-up at a government hospital; Nabin Pandey is travelling to Malda on work, Soumendu Sarkar is going backto Durgapur, his workplace, after the weekend with his family.

With every passing hour, the queue in front of the ticket counter becomes longer and longer. The wordless ones, the ones who shuffle on heads down till they disappear into the waiting buses and settle into their preferred seats —they are the daily passengers, as a bus conductor enlightens.

As the day unfolds, buses from Durgapur, Asansol, Bokaro, Ranchi and Jamshedpur drive in. Passengers get down and scurry off. Some have suitcases with them and some practically nothing. The bus conductor says, “Those who have less luggage on them are daily commuters. The rest are floating customers.”

Between 11 and 2, it is as if the whole scene is on pause mode. This is when the long-distance buses take a shower, the benches of the eateries all around are dotted with sleeping figures, the smaller ticket counters sport big locks.

Late afternoon and it is action time again. Mitali Basak and team are going to Bhubaneswar, Odisha, to participate in a handicrafts fair. “We always go by bus as we cannot risk putting our craftwork in the luggage compartment of the trains. Also, the bus takes us to the city. We get off very close to the venue of the fair,” she says. Shibendra Mahapatra, a musician, is also going to Bhubaneswar. He had come to Calcutta in the morning to attend music classes.

What if the bus stand shifts? Says Shibendra, “Don’t even ask me that. Santragachi is very far from the heart of the city. The taxi fare is nearly ₹800 one way,” he says. Another man overhears and says, agitatedly, “The bus fare is only ₹1,200 but if I have to ferry to and from Santragachi, I will have to shell out ₹1,000 more. How is that feasible week after week? And on top of that there is traffic congestion on that route. I will miss my train each time,” he says.

Says Pandey, “If the two bus terminuses — Babughat and Esplanade — shift from here to Santragachi, the transport system in the city will collapse. The High Court order had come in 2014 but so many years have passed and we could not shift. Do you know why? It will take decades to build a terminus with the same infrastructure and same facilities.”