Curving bus stands, drawn with almost protractor precision, ending a few metres before platform 1, lend Kurla station bus depot a quirky personality. They are uncharacteristically desolate this Thursday evening. Buses are not yet terminating their route at the arced bus stands; their original routes are reinstated only on Friday afternoon.  This writer and photojournalist Sayyed Sameer Abidi, a Kurla-resident, are retracing bus no. 332’s path of mayhem on Monday, as its brakes apparently failed and it lost control. As of this report going to print, seven people had died and 49 were injured as the electric bus hurtled and zigzaged for more than half a kilometre.

It was past 9.44 pm. Surekha Rajbhog, was at her small grocery-cum-snack shop, one of the first on SG Barve Marg. She saw 332 veer menacingly. “I was handing over change to a customer, when the bus tapped a parked rickshaw,” says Rajbhog. “People yelled at the driver to slow down, but in a blink, the bus was gone. He didn’t hit anyone here… that came much ahead…”