Delhi’s U-Special: A moving coach of shared memories

Launched in 1971 by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), the U-Special — also known as the University Special or Youth Special was stitched into the very fabric of the “DU experience”

It was the early summer of 1989 when 18-year-old Sanjay Jha arrived in the Capital to begin his college years at Delhi University. Determined to make his parents proud, he had promised himself there would be no distractions — certainly not romance. But that resolve melted the very first time he stepped onto the University Special bus.

Delhi University students taking a ride in a U-Special bus in 1995. (Sanjay Sharma/HT Archive)

Launched in 1971 by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), the U-Special — also known as the University Special or Youth Special — was never just a means of getting from one college to another. For nearly half a century, it was stitched into the very fabric of the “DU experience”, carrying millions of students and their stories.

For Jha, the U-Special was the only place he could steal moments with his special friend, a Miranda House student. “She had to go home right after class, so the commute was all the time we had together,” recalls Jha, now a senior executive in the private sector.

The relaunch of the U-Special buses on Thursday has reopened a floodgate of memories for many who once boarded them. Stories tumble out — of friendships struck in fleeting conversations, of love that bloomed between bus stops, of debates and songs and shared notes that carried on long after the ride ended.

“I met one of my closest friends on the U-Special,” says author and city chronicler Sohail Hashmi, who rode the buses between 1969 and 1972. “I was in Kirori Mal, he was in SRCC. We started talking on the bus and that was it. We would plan our days so we could take the same bus. Sometimes we’d even get dropped off at a cinema hall mid-route to catch a movie together.”

From tentative first cigarettes at the bus doors to impromptu ‘antakshari’ sessions, from fiery political discussions to earnest talk of theatre, the U-Special was a moving classroom of its own. “The seniors from Hindu and St Stephen’s dramatic societies would get into such passionate debates about theatre — it was impossible not to get swept up in it,” remembers Rajiv Narain Singh, a retired Tata Steel executive.

There was camaraderie, too, that extended well beyond the daily commute. “We were a group of seven or eight who became friends on the bus. We’d plan picnics, even an overnight trip to Chandigarh,” recalls Deepti Taneja, now a professor of economics at DU. “Since we were from different colleges, we’d often exchange notes depending on whose college had better teachers in a subject.” For Taneja, who travelled by U-Special between 2001 and 2004, the bus was also about reassurance. “I lived in Rohini then, and I was desperate to catch the morning U-Special because of the safety it provided.”

That sense of safety was something many women passengers valued deeply. “In those days, especially on the buses, every woman felt safe,” says Lekha Bhagat, who studied at Miranda House in the early 1970s. “I remember the relief I felt each time I stepped on — surrounded by fellow students, sometimes even teachers. It felt like a protective space.”

The U-Special, then, was more than a bus. It was a stage where friendships were born, minds were shaped, and generations of DU students carried a little bit of it with them, long after they stepped off for the last time.