The Mumbai Local

The lunch meeting was at the other end of the Mumbai city. I had calculated, based on my experience of living in Mumbai, which is now obsolete by a decade, that morning rush at local train would have ebbed by 10.30. So rather than taking a taxi through narrow lanes of Mumbai, I decided to cover the distance by a fast local train. I realised my mistake when the first train arrived from Thane, bursting at seams with people. I suppose, just like it’s extending borders, the rush hours of the city are also ever extending. It was too late then to change my mind, as taxi would have taken a couple of hours to reach The Fort. Local Train was my fastest option. I made up my mind and waited for the next train to arrive. 

As I began observing my fellow travellers, I realised that instead of stragglers and senior citizens visiting their relatives, as I had expected to be on the platform, the crowd consisted of people who are generally part of the morning rush hours. Some of them were standing anxiously at the platform, some walking till the edge, and peering at the railway tracks which disappeared into a small dot at the far distance. College students bantered and laughed, regular travel partners chatted and gossiped, while the majority of people had their eyes riveted to their smartphone screens. 

Suddenly the railway announcement in English, Marathi and Hindi, informing us that the next train was arriving soon, heightened the sense of excitement among the passengers. In a few seconds, someone had spotted the train. The crowd, as if on cue, moved away from the edge of the platform and flexed itself as a singular muscle - taut, anxious and ready for action. The dot of a train kept becoming bigger and very soon its houndlike snout entered the platform with a blaring horn. People standing at the doors, were waving their limbs like banners and pennants of an invading army. They shouted and whistled adding to the existing thrill. The compartment doors and windows which showed nothing but passengers stuffed inside it, began whizzing past my eyes. The train was slowing down and even before it came to a proper halt, the surging crowd behind hauled me towards the already packed train. With crowd pressing on all sides I was being squeezed into the train through invisible gaps and crevices in the wall of human bodies in front of me. The pressure came waves after waves and soon I found myself inside the train - propped on all sides against other perspiring human bodies. I stood there with my nostrils assaulted by collective smell of perspiration and deodorants. The oxygen level, I am sure was much lower than desirable. The crowd kept pressing on, trying to stuff as many as its parts inside. Eventually, the train began moving, but the mass inside, kept pulsating to settle itself down. After a few seconds I realised that the pushing movement changed its direction. The passengers who were to get down at the next station began pushing from within and started worming their way towards the exit. Apparently, there was a code of conduct followed by all travellers to facilitate passage in and out of a compartment. I being a novice was proving to be a nuisance. I felt the crowd telepathically decided to take action and pushed me in a corner so that the hurdle in the invisible path was removed. I was glad to be pushed aside. This allowed me a few moments to breath in the strange mixture of air suspended around the crowd. 

The train was now out of the covered railway station and onto the open tracks. There was a little more natural light, affording me to observe my surroundings. Men around me were pregnant with their backpacks worn back to front and standing in a way that makes one fully understand what the phrase ‘cheek by jowl’ really means. There was no sense of private space, you have to be part the of the sum total, by almost fusing yourself in, if you wanted to ensure your passage through this port in to the commercial districts of Mumbai. 

The compartments are built to last, to sustain the human onslaught every day. The seats, the little partitions, the overhead bars lined with handles to hold on, were all made up of sturdy stainless steel. Everyday human contact seems to have served as a good polishing process making the steel shine brightly. For some reason this robust strength instilled an inexplicable and perhaps unfounded sense of security.

It was difficult to see faces of my fellow passengers at such close quarters. I could, however see numerous hands raised up to hold on to the handles. They were in a way a representative sample of middle and lower classes of Mumbai in all it shades. There were thick and callused hands of workers, slender and soft hands of clerks, managers and techies- some muscular gymgoers, some manicured while a large number, limp and tired but still holding on to the dear life. There were greying hands of older men soon to be retiring from this madness, while some fresh and supple hands of college goers being recruited in to the process. Threads of various colours, fraying and washed out, adorned their wrists, perhaps as a bit of divine protection. Some had bands supporting a cause or worn just because it is fashionable. A surprisingly large numbers wore tattoos. A thick and most likely a married hand had name of a woman inked on the back of it, perhaps his wife. A thin hand had ‘Viraj’ written at the base of his thumb and index finger in scrawny letters, perhaps name of it’s self-possessed owner. There were scorpions, crosses, compasses, holy names, and other series of symbology, inked on the hands and forearms, trying to shelter a unique identity in the voracious mob-entity called a city. One hand caught my attention. It was the only hand with a wrist-watch. I tried to look harder, and search more, but that was indeed the lone hand with a wrist watch. People have mobile phones, they don’t need watches any more. An old technology has been edged out by a new one. 

After a few stations, I managed to get inside where people sat on metal benches facing each other while other passengers stood between the benches. I was drenching in perspiration by then and an overhead fan provided me some respite. It was easy to see faces of the people in this part of the compartment. Most people who had managed to get a seat were busy with their phones and even those who were standing were trying to fiddle with them despite lack of space. Some were engaged in conversation, but mostly everyone was silent. I looked at their faces carefully. Did I see any stress, any trace of complain? Surprisingly I couldn’t. They all seemed to be quite ‘alright’ about this daily ordeal, which was proving to be a rather challenging experience for me. I do not know whether I was being oversensitive or they had resigned to this. 

Station after station people got in and got out. Finally I was about to reach the erstwhile Boribandar station which has been renamed over and over again. From Boribandar to Victoria Terminus, then to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and finally Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. 

The train was reaching the station. The crowd was ready, as usual, both inside and outside the train. Fighting the onslaught of people trying to board the train I managed to land on the platform. Thankful to have completed the journey I drew my first breath. I realised it had oxygen in it. 

Please Comment and Follow! 😀😀😀