By Y.P. Rajesh
NEW DELHI, May 29 (Reuters) - They break down frequently, the windows rattle, the seats creak and the air-conditioning is broken. One of the two buses was hit by a truck last week.
Yet on these two clapped-out vehicles ride the hopes of India and Pakistan. The nuclear-armed neighbours who went to the brink of war last year decided this week to restore a highly popular cross-border bus service to try to build on a thaw in ties.
"Frankly, both buses are unfit to make the Delhi-Lahore journey," a senior Delhi Transport Corporation official told Reuters.
But as the two governments try once more for a rapprochement, he said his company would surely invest in new vehicles for what is potentially a highly profitable service.
"We'll have to buy new buses when the dates for resumption of services are set," the official said.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee launched the service with much fanfare in 1999, taking the first bus to the northern Pakistani city of Lahore.
The twice-weekly luxury service over the 537-km (335-mile) route proved hugely popular for thousands of divided families, daunted by costly air links and rare, overcrowded trains.
Vajpayee's first bid for peace ultimately failed, and all transport links were suspended, after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for an attack on its parliament in December 2001.
The gleaming golden-brown buses were diverted to domestic routes and the stress of running on India's poor roads shows.
"Obviously their maintenance has not been as good as it should have been," the DTC official said.