Travelling in Kumaon of the 60s

My mother's generation travelled home to Almora by train up to the town of Bareilly and then continued the rest of the journey on horseback or palanquins ( Dandis) carried by hefty Nepali men who kept yelling "Ek Taraf!" ( move aside !) as they carried their precious cargo of women and children. By the time we grew up macademized ( Damar) roads had replaced the kuchcha trekking trails and we boarded the bus from the Kathgodam terminal .
The first thing that comes to mind, are the sick- making petrol fumes from the luridly painted KMOU (Kumaon Motor Owners' Union Ltd) buses that sneezed as they moved . We were told to look ahead at the back of other buses to ward off nausea. What was called the 'backside' of each bus, had duly signed pictures of leaping tigers, birds, lakes , trees and hills, along with slogans . These seem to have been painted mainly by a painter duo : Himmatuva painter and Babu painter. We were sick most of the time till we reached .  
The KMOU was born in 1939 after the first transport company simply called The Motor Transport Company collapsed for reasons unknown. The first CMD of KMOU was one EZ Fonseca, an Anglo Indian and owned vast tracts of land known as Fonseca Estates. We called him Mister Funsee ( Mr pimple) when the elders were not around. But obviously he was a good manager . After his retirement we heard adults say, the Company had gone to the dogs. This worried us temporarily, handicapped by a lack of knowledge of English as we were , till we learnt that buses were far from becoming the property of ferocious Bhutiya sheep dogs with a nasty breath and mean yellow eyes. 
Petrol pumps then were few in the area and none in the villages around . The buses, before they began climbing up to Nainital and beyond,  'took' petrol at a pump in Kathgodam . The petrol pump most in demand was owned jointly by Sardar Harbans Singh, Lala Balmukund and one Harvansh . All these worthies were referred to in the board hanging at the petrol station as Pro. ( short for proprietor) . There were 250 buses in all, owned by various people, my cousin Muku informed me sagely. He loved to make lists and put down all such facts in a little black diary he carried when travelling . The buses we also learnt from his notes, left the headquarters at Kathgodam after 'taking' petrol, for various towns and had unions which protected the workers . Since the hill folk in those days were not too mechanically inclined , Haldwani, Tanakpur, and Ram Nagar were the foothill towns from whence all the area drivers, cleaners and mechanics were recruited . 
Our great pleasure as we moved, was to read aloud the slogans painted on rocks on both sides of the road far into the interior . It was the work of an eccentric local Shiv Dutt Joshi, also known as Gandhi Baba. He was a follower of Gandhi's teachings and had taken it upon himself to try and eradicate various bad habits that afflicted the new generation , namely drinking tea, imbibing alcohol, smoking Bidi cheroots and cigarettes . Baba ji was said to have graduated from The Gurukul Kangri University in Rishikesh considered a stronghold of austere Arya Samajis . Baba ji then ran a tea shop in Nainital. He later set up an Ashram (long before Mahrshi Mahesh Yogi and others made it cool), near Jyolikot village. It was called Shiv Digesto Ashram. 
After 1962 Chinese incursions in which India was badly pushed about, Gandhi Baba added a few anti China slogans to his usual ones . These now said, "Chai Bidi Chhodo, Cheen ko Khadedo !" (Give up tea and smoking, also chase away the Chinese), Rashtriya Suraksha Kosh Mein Daan do ! ( Please donate to the national defence fund) . In the 70s, after Baba ji moved to live in Sakhavat gunj in Haldwani at the foothills, new ecological considerations became visible when Baba ji's slogans said ,Nainital Ka Mal, Haldwani ka Peyjal !  (Haldwani's drinking water carries Nainital's excreta ). Corruption began to be highlighted as well, Arrey Bhai kyon baithey ho udas ? Hara note dikhao jhat se Gadi pass ! ( O Brother, why look morose ? Show a green currency note and your vehicle will get the pass ). He is said to have received some 6000 letters of commendation from various celebrities, including India's first Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru .