’’ ... and the reason is youuuuu’’. I was totally in the captivation of doug’s( hoobastank) vocals. With my eyes closed and my walky playing mind blowing rock music, I could now hear a distinct sound other than the music. As I looked up to see the cause of the disturbance, I was glad to see that it was the horn of an approaching local train. I had been transformed to a ’’kya soorat hai’’ video guy look alike for the past half an hour waiting for the local at Raipur station.
As soon as the crowd waiting at the station saw the multi wheeler, multi bogie spectacle of Indian railways approach the station, they started behaving like refugees waiting for a relief goods. Well maintained bellies of middle aged ’uncles’ were being pushed by down to ’earth’, Mayawati like ladies.In the midst of chaos, I remained as calm as a zen buddhist monk. This was partly due to the fact that I had seen these scenes as regularly as Ganguly goes after scoring in single digits. Moreover I felt it was a cool way to impress upon, that while all others were just a rowdy mob at loose, I remained the only sane character on the platform.
Thankfully just 25 minutes late and already full of passengers the train arrived. The scene of ppl pushing, elbowing, kicking and stabbing( ok too much) made u think whether Shahrukh or Sachin were inside one of the compartments. After all the hooplah I finally got my reserved birth??? Ya, my reserved birth...i.e. of the door. And with fragile supports to hang on to the door, which would have made my mom faint, I began my hour long journey towards Bhilai.
With ’the goo goo dolls’ now occupying my music tastes, I started day dreaming.. correction, evening dreaming. It was 7 pm and I remembered my last visit to Mumbai. Of Mumbai, whatI remember the most is not its locales, but the locals. The efficiency and the discipline of this local commuting system is the main attraction for me at mumbai. Slow locals or fast locals both have a rythme and a kind of functional glamour attached to them. For a guy who waits daily for locals which run perpetually late in Chattisgarh( my state) the accuracy of punctuality of the entire system is baffling.
And thenI realised why our locals between Bhilai-Raipur which are around 10-15 daily cannot achieve even an iota of efficiency of the Mumbai transit system. The answer is simple: Necessity. The Mumbai suburban railways has to work efficiently because most of the times it has no other choice. The amount of load it carries and the efficiency is still not able to handle the number of commuters in peak hours. Discipline is necessary not only for the railways but also for passengers, because the lack of it will waste the only thing all Mumbaikars lack very much: Time.
We on the other hand, like many other emerging urban sectors of India have ample time on hand. You dont get ppl finishing their breakfasts, homeworks or reading newspapers in trains in these parts of the country. Nobody is in that kind of hurry here.
Ya, that’s it!, I thought, and this time my thoughts were slaughtered by sounds of a child wailing. An infant was trying to convince all around him that he had enough of this sweaty train. I agreed with the baby. A guy with hair curled up like Mithun da was spotting an engineering student. I just love it when guys with no decent background, but hardworking and obviously employed as labour somewhere, try to catch attention of cheesy uptown girls with attitudes to match. The reactions on these junctures are quite obvious. The guy has nothing to loose demeanour and the girl gets distressed cos she is frustrated to get attentions from types she wont even talk to while the ’’Tom Cruise’’on the train is busy trying to study, to escape a fourth time failure in his exams.
Some women were sitting on the floor, making ’’bidis’’ ( desi cigarette) while discussing their daily lives which must be something to talk about. Just about the time the man behind me was stepping on my shoes for the fifth time.
I saw the Bhilai Steel Plant covering the horizon. Thousands of tiny lights made the steel plant look like it was Diwali time. I felt the temperature drop by two degrees. It always happens when you enter Bhilai from Raipur. The baby had stopped wailing thankfully.With a speed matching that of a lame tortoise, the train started approaching the Bhilai Nagar platform. As a parting gift, I presume, my shoes were trampled by the man behind me for the seventh time now.This time though I turned around and asked’’ Sir, how much should I pay you for the hour long foot massage ?’’