"Platform no. 2 pe aarahi local Churchgate ke taraf janiwali dheemi local hain. Yeh local har stanako pe rukegi".. Greets the announcer at the Vile Parle railway station each morning as I motivate my lazy limbs to go over the bridge to the platform where the train to Dadar is expected.
Presently pursuing my summers with a reputed FMCG company, interacting with my fellow interns makes me scratch my head as why do they feel mumbai local is crowded and the traveling experience is straining. I always felt at home whenever i travelled by local trains. The reason is that the situation at my present alma mater is no different. The favourite hangout place (the quad as its called) boasts of a population density higher than that in bangladesh trains and bears heavy resemblance to the crowded platform at Vile Parle. The fight for occupancy in last benches in class is a zillion folds more than that for a standing space at the local. The chaos and the level of noise at both the places is also no different. And one of the biggest similarities is the crowd we have at the ticket counters is almost similar (both in quantitative and in qualitative terms) to that at the college canteen. So in a nutshell, whether we were trained to managers or not in the last 10 odd months is a question to be answered later, but one thing which I am sure of is that we were simulated to handle the local train tamasha which I do with utmost flair as compared to my fellow interns.
One interesting aspect of the Mumbai local is that the coach quotas assigned are more than the number of religions I can name. (difficult to say if its my ignorance which is more dominant or the number of quotas in the trains). With great difficulty you reach the platform and wait for the train only to find that the place where you ve stopped is the one where Ladies coach is expected. Now by the time you realize and quickly see as in on which side is the 2nd class general coach is nearer, a huge crowd amasses near the entry of every coach as if free food is being distributed to the destitutes of Ethiopia. Blame it on my spinal cords’ faulty signal sending mechanism to the brain, even if I realize that the general coach on the left is nearer to me than the one on my right, I end up taking the longer route. I rush to the ‘farther’ coach only to see the train moving at a faster speed than me. Alas!! I miss the train…
Making a conscious effort to be at the right place on the platform where general coach is expected, I prepare myself mentally to tear the crowd and move into the train and prove myself that even I am capable of traveling in the Mumbai Local. Everything goes as per plan, Train arrives, General coach stops right in front of me, and with all energy I barge into the coach.. Elation, Excitement and Satisfaction.. It feels as if I ve beat Carl Lewis in a 100 mt sprint.. As I wipe my sweat to feel more comfortable, I get the jolt of my life when I realize that I have caught the Central Line Train – the one that has a different route. To add to my woes I also come to know that the train is a fast train and stops at only selected stations.. Damn it.. With great difficult, as I reach my office hungry, I find the canteen closed.. The coffee vending machine comes to my rescue as I can atleast satiate my tummy with a stimulating cup of hot coffee.
Mumbai Local helps me a big way in early mornings to get up. Since my house is only a few feet away from the tracks (so close it is that at times I really feel that the commuters hanging on the coaches would alight at my doorstep), the array of trains from 7 AM hooting when it passes by serves as the biggest alarm even the Sultan of Brunei cant boast of. And these days being a regular commuter through the Local trains, if any rookie wants to take my advice on when to board a train, there is a simple principle (ThoughtFOOL’s Law of Train Boarding.. as I call it) – Look in through the window and see if you can see light at the end of the other window.. If you can see even the faintest of light source at the end (which wont happen in most cases), hey presto, you got it. This is the train.. But if you cant, then prefer waiting for the next train to come.. It’s a china wall between you and your destination, which you cannot pass unless you are David Blaine.
Hoping that these ThoughtFOOLness helps you in making a better journey with the Mumbai Locals.. You hate it, you scorn at it, you criticize it, but at the end whether we like it or not, its an integrated part of every Mumbai-kars life.. Hail the Mumbai Local….
Inspired by the 7 A.M. Local train - The worlds biggest alarm..
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