It is commonly referred to as the 'lifeline' of Mumbai city-the local train. But I beg to differ, in that, I feel that if you travel by the local, then you need a lifeline to survive.
My experiences of the local train network are varied. I am a bus traveller, but sometimes it is more efficient to travel by the local because they have a fixed time slot and one can reach the destination of far flung suburbs faster than by bus. Besides direct buses are not available to far off suburbs and the bus services are not regular. Trains are regular and reliable. But.....
The misery of train travel begins at the ticketing window. Dirty, smelly, scantily clad urchins or a minor beggar, or an old, half paralyzed beggar, are always on one side of the ticketing window, watching you buy your ticket, making you guilty of spending money on yourself. Their extended palms and rhythmic banging of a begging bowl, puts one off, the anticipation of the journey is now perforated with sadness and remorse, at the state of the individual that one is expected to appease with cash.
Then the rush of boarding the correct train, and hurriedly plonking onto any vacant seat, before none are left vacant with the hoards that ply on the route. But finding a seat is possible at the starting points of Churchgate, CST or Virar etc. If you board at any of the intermediate stations, you will never get a seat. You are lucky if you manage to board the train at all. There are just too many commuters for the limited trains on the circuits. My colleagues who travel daily from Nallasopara to Mumbai Central, always board the train at four in the morning and that too, the local that is headed backwards, to the starting point of Virar. Then they continue to sit in the train and head back towards Mumbai Central. That is the only way they say that it is possible to be in the train at all, because it gets too crowded to be able to board it at all, after that, even at the next stop of Nallasopara.
I had to travel from Grant Road station to Santa Cruz, for some administrative work. Having managed to board the train, I felt relieved, since it was quite crowded. All the seats were occupied, fourth seats also. Women were standing between seats and along the corridor between the seats and holding the above-head handles and standing between the entrances. A torture to breathe in their smelly armpits that were all around my face. I got a support on the back of the side seats.
My attention was diverted to some women shouting from the window seats that overlooked the neighbouring stationary train. Some of them were shouting encouraging words and some were shouting 'nahee'. As I craned my neck to find out the centre of their attention, I realized that a young boy was being urged by his mother to urinate at the entrance of the neighbouring train and the boy was hesitant. But soon he overcame his shame on being encouraged by the women from our train too. 'Becharaa, bhachcha hai. Susu karne do nah. Toilet bhi toh nahee stationpar.' And then our train took off.
Then the train approached Dadar and what a mad rush ensued. Women pushing their way in and others pushing their way out. Abuses and screams and expletives galore. All the new entrants started asking the seated women where they would alight, and forming mutual bonds for reserving the seats when the present occupants would vacate them. I was pinched, pressed, pushed and poked, by the women who alighted and the ones who boarded, in huge waves of onslaught.
What a torture these travellers undergo daily. For a novice local train traveller like me, it is traumatic. And among all the din of the crowd in the overfull bogie, the background noise of the metal wheels pulling the train towards each station, the background announcements of the approaching stations, the audio advertisements of Kubal Masale, was repetitively being played, as though all was well and hunky dory within the bogie.
What a relief it was to alight and be free of the confines of the melee.
My experiences of the local train network are varied. I am a bus traveller, but sometimes it is more efficient to travel by the local because they have a fixed time slot and one can reach the destination of far flung suburbs faster than by bus. Besides direct buses are not available to far off suburbs and the bus services are not regular. Trains are regular and reliable. But.....
The misery of train travel begins at the ticketing window. Dirty, smelly, scantily clad urchins or a minor beggar, or an old, half paralyzed beggar, are always on one side of the ticketing window, watching you buy your ticket, making you guilty of spending money on yourself. Their extended palms and rhythmic banging of a begging bowl, puts one off, the anticipation of the journey is now perforated with sadness and remorse, at the state of the individual that one is expected to appease with cash.
Then the rush of boarding the correct train, and hurriedly plonking onto any vacant seat, before none are left vacant with the hoards that ply on the route. But finding a seat is possible at the starting points of Churchgate, CST or Virar etc. If you board at any of the intermediate stations, you will never get a seat. You are lucky if you manage to board the train at all. There are just too many commuters for the limited trains on the circuits. My colleagues who travel daily from Nallasopara to Mumbai Central, always board the train at four in the morning and that too, the local that is headed backwards, to the starting point of Virar. Then they continue to sit in the train and head back towards Mumbai Central. That is the only way they say that it is possible to be in the train at all, because it gets too crowded to be able to board it at all, after that, even at the next stop of Nallasopara.
I had to travel from Grant Road station to Santa Cruz, for some administrative work. Having managed to board the train, I felt relieved, since it was quite crowded. All the seats were occupied, fourth seats also. Women were standing between seats and along the corridor between the seats and holding the above-head handles and standing between the entrances. A torture to breathe in their smelly armpits that were all around my face. I got a support on the back of the side seats.
My attention was diverted to some women shouting from the window seats that overlooked the neighbouring stationary train. Some of them were shouting encouraging words and some were shouting 'nahee'. As I craned my neck to find out the centre of their attention, I realized that a young boy was being urged by his mother to urinate at the entrance of the neighbouring train and the boy was hesitant. But soon he overcame his shame on being encouraged by the women from our train too. 'Becharaa, bhachcha hai. Susu karne do nah. Toilet bhi toh nahee stationpar.' And then our train took off.
Then the train approached Dadar and what a mad rush ensued. Women pushing their way in and others pushing their way out. Abuses and screams and expletives galore. All the new entrants started asking the seated women where they would alight, and forming mutual bonds for reserving the seats when the present occupants would vacate them. I was pinched, pressed, pushed and poked, by the women who alighted and the ones who boarded, in huge waves of onslaught.
What a torture these travellers undergo daily. For a novice local train traveller like me, it is traumatic. And among all the din of the crowd in the overfull bogie, the background noise of the metal wheels pulling the train towards each station, the background announcements of the approaching stations, the audio advertisements of Kubal Masale, was repetitively being played, as though all was well and hunky dory within the bogie.
What a relief it was to alight and be free of the confines of the melee.
No comments:
Post a Comment