Monday, February 27, 2012

Life in the City - Another Day, Another journey

Chapter 3 - Travel - A Way of Life  
Have you ever lived in a city that has a local train system? If you have, you would have witnessed what I write. If you haven't, close your eyes and imagine it. 

Every morning, during what Mumbaikars refer to as peak-time, there is a great spectacle to be witnessed. For this, you need to identify a busy local station - say Andheri. Then you hunt for the foot over-bridge that ferries thousands ( and this I say conservatively) across the railway lines that bisect Mumabi into East and West. On either sides are railings that allow you to crane your neck to check whether you can still manage to scramble on to the 8.35 Churchgate slow or the 8.40 Virar fast with just seconds to spare before it pulls out of the platform. Find a comfortable spot, where you are least likely to be jostled hard.( Psst, it is kind of impossible to avoid being cursed or rudely glared at for appearing immovable when the whole over-bridge seems to be in a permanent state of fluid motion). However,once you have found that sweet spot, wait. It won't be long. Trains move in and out of platforms in Andheri every other minute. When the next train pulls in, hold your breath. 

There is usually a reverent, almost automatic hush that lasts barely a second or two as the local slows down in its approach towards the platform. Ignore those that I shall call as 'Leapers', they who have no patience for the train to come to a halt, but jump out while it is still in motion. 


As the train grinds to a halt, it will appear like a worm freshly trampled upon- its innards, black, impossibly thick and sluggish mass oozing out on to the platform. A bird's eye view is highly recommended. Every day, Mumbai's trains unloads its burden of humanity and you feel you heard the train heaving a sigh of relief...Oh wait, that was you, releasing that breath you'd held in, all this while.


The choke that you feel as you wait to leap on to a train or off it, with a waiting crowd already three-person deep is something most detest...but stay away from it and you long to do it just one more time - for there is a sense of camaraderie even while people compete to sit on the curving edge of a bench-seat which has already seated its maximum of three. And then there's the rare faint smile or nod of recognition to look forward to, though you have never exchanged a word with the Elphinstone lady or Churchgate teacher ( so named because she always gets down at that station).


Those who call Mumbai home spend the better part of their day and therefore in sum total, their lives travelling - to study, to work, to meet friends and family. That's how life in the city becomes a set of repetitive acts, performed with strangers every day, in a manner that leaves you just another black head that formed the thick ooze of humanity on the railway platform. 


In under a minute, that choking platform turns vacant, few stragglers hang around, the black dots dispersed. And from my perch on the foot over-bridge, the wait for the next train begins..I want to witness that sight again, I want to revel in that feeling that I have the leisure to stand and stare while Mumbai breathes around me. 


(Photographs by Gregor Thomeczek, 2011)

12 comments:

  1. i went to mumbai once and travelled by local(rather was made to travel by my uncle who insisted tht a i visit his home in vasai)...boy was it a ride!!!!

    i started from churchgate and got off at vasai...and i never complained about crowded buses in delhi after that!!!

    http://sushmita-smile.blogspot.in/

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    1. Haha, good one, shooting star! Mumbai does have a way to make people humble, but you know what I like about the city - the humility and the sense of practicality over the love to flaunt it and be ostentatious. Then again, people would laugh at anyone stupid enough to insist on using personal transportation in a city that just does not have any place to expland..:)

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  2. You have described it with the patience of a Sunil Gavaskar. (Yes, I am begining to appreciate that. You have covered most aspects of Mumbai local trains: boarding, deboarding, leaping, being shoved in, being spurned and managing to hold on to impossible corners of the seats. I loved the metaphor of the freshly trampled worm that you present as the bird's eye view.

    ps. Incidentally, did you read my 'Blogger's Kolaveri' Post?

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    1. USP: I always fancied myself as a pinch-hitter that goes hammer and tongs in the slog-over, but I'm glad you thought I'm a patient stroke-player..:) I haven't read Blogger's Kolaveri, been very tardy with blogging and reading, but I need to get in a lot of pending reading done..:)

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  3. LOOOOOOOOved this one. Lucky for you to be able to just 'witness' and not participate in the proceedings. I have done the rushing and leaping in a matter of seconds loooooooooong ago when i was much younger. 2 mins from the bus stop into the train. Was it me? sigh.

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    1. Zephyr: That timing is so crucial isn't it, if there is a bit of change here or there, you only see smirking women in the last compartment looking at you with pity as you huff and puff down the stairs to catch the train slowly moving. The urge not to try and do a Kajol ( to run and catch a moving train) is subjugated just because I know there is no Shah Rukh Khan egging me on that train, just a nasty look from colleagues when I walk in late and frazzled! :)

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  4. You have described it so well..only a Mumbaiker will understand the love with which you speak about local trains and the mass of humanity it transports :)

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    1. Well, my mostly love, sometimes hate relationship continues...:) It's usually only love while I am away from the city, but living here makes it difficult to blot out the obvious defects of living here!!

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  5. Lovely, lovely, lovely. A bird's eye view is so much better than having trains disappear underground. I remember an aunt of mine (from outside Mumbai) hesitating to climb in because the train had started moving. As she hesitated and stood there wailing someone grabbed her arm and pulled her in and someone else pushed (literally lifted) her in from behind. Within a second the train picked up speed, we saw her slightly shocked and relieved face and a very shaky wave of her hanky. Mumbaikars on the platform smiled at a job well done before going their own way.

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    1. Thanks KayEm, I gather you are a closet-Mumbai lover like me..:) The incident you are narrated is one I have witnessed too and I'm glad you noted it down here, it is indeed the humane face of travelling in Mumbai. There are many who crib that no one cares whether you fall off the train or cling on, but I don't think that's true. On the days I barely made to the train, I have felt a couple of ladies pulling me in by my handbag or keeping a firm hold on my hand to ensure I don't slip out..:)

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  6. Loved this ! The entire narration is so civilized, if you think about the entire commotion that happens on each platform. I have once, 28 years ago, had the honor of being pulled into a general compartment, as I came running down the bridge, carrying my baby son, and tried to catch the train which had just given one of those starting jerks. And the fellows acted, like, no problem, they did this everyday.... :-) .

    I wrote about it in my early blogging days .

    http://kaimhanta.blogspot.in/2009/02/training-for-travel.html

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    1. I am such a fan of your writing, I'm super-elated that you found my post enjoyable:)) I guess Mumbai train journeys are such personal experiences that however much you write about it, there's still a new tale that got left unsaid..Like one of the times that I was dozing by a window seat, the girl next to me, content in her relative privacy in the packed morning train, went on a rampage against her boyfriend for cheating on her and daring to call her early the next morning..

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