Pushing, Shoving, Twisting and Turning in Mumbai

Mumbai local trains are popularly known as the lifeline of this financial hub. I remember, long back in school we learnt in Geography that India holds some 3^rd or 4^th rank for having the largest railways in the world. Carrying more than a million passengers daily, the local train is the fastest mode of transport available. It requires great skill, technique and determination to get in and out of a Mumbai local train. If you have not travelled in a Mumbai local, you have not visited Mumbai and you have not lived and certainly you lack the adventure spirit...

 Mumbai is a sea of people having a basic need of, and a motto of ‘travelling’ in chaos. For Mumbaikars time is money. They have the mentality of completing 30 minutes journey in 3 minutes. Time running out of situation, jostling of the regular travellers, cacophony of the sellers in the trains, cheap transport , over used to the core of heart making an addiction, neglected out of love and the unwillingness of privatization and the unpredictability of the train timing is what Mumbai local trains are all about.

 For all 12 months and all the hours of the day the stations are like one big fish market itself with abstractly creative spit stained walls and floors. The stations are pretty old, deteriorating day by day and outstandingly suitable enough to be displayed in any paleontological museum.

           

People, the beauty and beast of Mumbai, speak of anything they think of, be it some college students having the latest gossips on college couples, school students discussing about studies, working women commenting on some fellow passengers dressing, exchanging food recipes, men playing cards, quarrels over window seat with few Mumbai slangs ,etc. etc. etc. The peak hours or the rush hour is the most wonderful times to travel in a Mumbai local train. You actually get to witness the life of Mumbai and I bet you would be astonished to watch the variety of life existing in this city with the local slangs and the shoving, pushing, twisting and turning.

          

Women have separate compartments to avoid the annoying pack of wolfs. Women wait patiently at the platform like all others, but checking out what the women beside her is wearing, be it clothes, jewellery, tops, jeans or shoes, they would see it with all the attention they can. With magazines or newspapers wrapped with utmost care or with a bulky 700 page novel and hand bags so carefully held near chest with secure arms wrapping the tinny tiny 500 bucks bag as though carrying 1000 carat diamonds, they glide into the train.

          

The environment on and around the platform is not so decent. The atmosphere is warm, filled with dust, irritating pungent smell and evaporated sweat odour making it difficult to recognise what exactly is the smell and as to from which direction it is coming.

         

As the royal train makes its way onto the platform, people get away and immediately take up the best spot to make their grand entry into the royal ride. While people in the ride, simply just jump off with merriment seeing the concrete platform as their task for the day is accomplished.

          

The fans in the trains are a joke or a prank set up by the government to entertain its passengers. The fans are simply meant to burn electricity and won’t work unless you shovel a spin into its blade. Thanks to the brand new trains having fans with a power of throwing out a skinny person on a spin.  The handles in the trains are of great importance. It avoids your elbow from resting on the next persons shoulder or accidently hitting the persons head or face. Sometimes you could also stand or kick someone’s feet without making him realise that you have kicked him, for this you don’t have to be good at juggling or something, the crowd does it all for you. Sometimes you may also get the opportunity of standing at the door while some people fight over that door spot. It is a heavenly pleasure for such people as they get to have a crystal clear view of the world along with the dirty tracks full of shit and puke and enjoying the dusty air that runs through their hair.

Getting into the local train is an art in itself. You have to wait patiently while the people inside the compartments jump out. You don’t really have to take any effort of getting in. All you have to do is stand in the right spot and at the right time, the energetic Mumbaikars will do the rest of shoving you in with all their love and verbal respect which you will certainly find hard to resist.

However terrifically the Mumbai locals are, but it is almost impossible to imagine a day without it. Mumbai has seen it all, right from its fall during the riots and terrorist attacks to its rise in various sectors. Few weeks back the nightmare of ‘no local’ came true. People were stoned. The platforms were horribly crowed with regular passengers hoping that someone might just pinch and wake them up from this nightmare. That’s the importance of Mumbai locals, my friends.    

     

So this is how I look at the Mumbai local trains, wonderful, full of amazing people who always have something to share with their fellow passengers about anything anytime, full of filth, the stink. It’s all in there my friend.