You love them, you hate them but you can’t do without ’em.
Reading Keertan’s review on Local Trains titled cattle Truck gave me a sense of Deja vu. Been there and seen it all. His review is very funny and I suggest all of you to read it too. He has tried to make light a situation that is becoming a hardship for all the Bombay people.
My father told me once, that if the trains are running then Bombay is fine. If they are not then God save us. I have lived here during the riots, the bomb blasts, the stonings, the statue desecrations, firings and the worst rainy days mankind has ever seen since Noah’s times. I have only 2 broken windows (or rather had) to show for all these calamities. But nothing can undermine this city and it’s amazing people and their amazing spirit and their resilience.
In a few days or months everything becomes normal. People block it out of their mind and continue ‘LIVING’ as if nothing happened. There are only two things that can bring the city to its knees in a jiffy. One is water shortage and the other is when trains stop plying.
When the latter happens, there is ultimate chaos in this city. Hundreds of people stand on the platform and look left then right as if a tennis match were going on. Buses are crowded and the whole infrastructure of the city is destroyed or made worthless. India loses about 800 crores a day. Some estimates put it at 1500. That shows the importance of trains in our lives.
I used the Central railway when I lived in Ghatkopar and still use it while travelling to college. Now I have shifted to Andheri. Central is far less crowded than western railways simply because of the huge size of the western suburbs. But the western railways are more punctual than the central. In the Central’s defense, they have a much more complex and longer routes with constant bifurcations. The Western railways have people who enforce the no getting down at Andheri from a Borivili local rule. Read horus review on the same topic for further enlightenment.
I will try to summarize Train Travel for you. I won’t be successful coz there are innumerable livening and supernatural aspects to it. And I am a mere mortal.
At Dadar station when an empty train arrives, people go berserk. All their civic sense is thrown to the dumps and they charge towards the train as a hungry man would pounce on food or a tiger on its prey. Anything that comes in their way is either pushed or if it is not strong enough, knocked down. At Borivali station, when trains arrive simultaneously the far end over-bridge is hell. I clocked myself one day, it took me 27 minutes to reach from end to end.
I am 5’11 or 6’0 and the Indian average male height is 5’5. Maybe that explains why I have smelt almost all the oils that can be applied to the hair in the market. What is it with Indian men and oil. I have to look heavenwards for fresh air. But that was before. Now I stand with one hand on the bar and my body swaying out of the train. No matter I can’t feel anything in my arm for 15 minutes after alighting. No matter I am a prime candidate for being knocked down by a pole and there is a slim chance that this is my last review. Remember that when you rate this review. At least I get fresh air for all my strife. (except between Sion and Matunga).
Oh I used to remember the days when I was littler and could travel with the ladies along with my mother. Becoming 12 years old is a very bad thing.
In my first year of train travel (TT) I have gone through every experience a traveler can have. Most of it might have been classified as assault in other countries. Only I haven’t been trampled upon. But that’s nothing to be happy about. There is simply no place for a full size person to fall on the floor.
As Keertan has mentioned in his review on the same topic it all starts at 7:30 am. My biology teacher Ms. Hari of SIES college Sion still hates me coz I could never convince her that Ma’m it was not HUMANLY possible to board the train today. Then you should have been this she says pointing towards a dead frog. There is no count for the number of practicals I missed or exams I reached late for.
But one thing I like is that to never have to hold a bag that you are carrying in your hands. All you have to do is hold it in front of you and it stays put due to compressive forces. The TC will never check you when you have a ticket. No, he will wait and that sadist ******* will catch you on the day your pass expires or for once you have forgotten to buy your ticket. If you want to pay the full money you get a receipt otherwise they have a lucrative (for them) pay half, get no receipt offer. But even having a pass sometimes does not guarantee No Checking. On a fateful day, I was stopped thrice by 3 different TC’s on a single platform while making my way from the train to the over-bridge. No wonder I have never wore those attention drawing clothes I wore that day ever again. Red shirt with white jeans, what was I thinking?
Then there are those wondrous people who deliberately push you, stamp on your feet and then stare at you as if it was your fault. If you complain you get the famous reply, “yeh train hai, tere baap ki gaadi nahin”. You keep silent if they are larger than you or seem as if they have anything to do with any gang or political outfit. You know, the same guys who broke my windows.
On a more tragic and sad note, remember people like Jaybala Ashar who have to pay dearly. Three ladies watched as the tragedy occurred and that is a sickening thought. If someday I was being mugged, I hope it is not too unreasonable to hope that someone will come to my rescue or if I am thrown out, at least the matter will be reported at the next station. Once while hanging out of a train, a stone was hurled at my train too. Luckily it landed bang in the middle of two compartment doors hust ahead from where I was hanging. I have both my eyes still and I had never thanked God for them before.
Whatever the cons there is no denying the fact that that trains are the quickest and Bombay will crumble without them. Unless some measures are taken in a few years we will have to undergo physical and emotional tests to undertake train travel. Hopefully the extra lines from Kurla to Thane, the link between Andheri and Ghatkopar and the MMRDA project under Chandrashekhar will improve things.