9.06 Slow

9.06 Slow

8.30: on a Sunday, an easy day to take the local, or so I thought. The sun was out after long. A five minute walk to Bandra station and I am there at the buzzing station.
After twelve years I was doing Bandra to Kandivili. It took me 45 minutes to get there but I don’t think I will get over the journey. Since I am not a writer I will write it like a railway timetable.

8.38: There’s a long queue at the booking office, not much different from the one in 1992. Some people still jump the line and a few meekly protest. The new addition was a red coupon-validating machine, which was ignored like the beggar who sat just below the ticket counter. I could feel my hand involuntarily patting my butt to check for my wallet. A few girls just approached the window confidently breaking the queue, but there were no noises made. The carpenter in front of me was solving a dispute in Begusarai, and he had the same mobile etiquette as the stock broker in the Red lounge. I knew I was second last as I was being tapped by the beggar at a well rehearsed pace. That was also the sign for me to take my wallet out. The last time I traveled, the ticket was a small piece of cardboard which was punched into a machine which looked like a G-Clamp. The new tickets are printouts; cool idea but they should have made them smaller and saved paper. I then ask for the coupon booklet also, and am relieved that they are almost the size of the old card tickets.

8.50: At the entrance of platform no.1 I see a desk and an earnest cop sitting and reading the morning newspaper. He is amongst the chosen few who have to be on the lookout for suspicious characters carrying suspicious objects. But the man in uniform is more interested in knowing whether the Aamdar from Satara has got a cabinet berth which directly effects in a plum posting. I thought the best people to spot suspicious characters were the TC’s. The TC’s also blend in with the whole station and appear out of nowhere. They also do not have to worry about the postings because they have it already.

8.51: I arrive on the footbridge that divides north and south Mumbai. Beginning to get the rhythm of the crowd. If you are in the middle you have to put in no effort, that is if you are going in the same direction as the millions that surround you. I take a side step and move away from the crowd. This is a good time to take a look at the indicators. There’s a Virar fast and an Andheri slow in between two Churchgate locals. I am shoved aside by a stocky tennis player. With his Slazenger slung on his back, he had already started playing the game. He is obviously heading towards the north. Meanwhile another person waiting next to me is talking in UP Hindi. His last price is Rs.1000 and not a paisa less. Diagonally two lovers are doing the goodbye dance. They seem to be in no hurry. The girl is so enamoured by her guy that she actually is seeing the motorcycle, which he is going to buy on EMIs, in his eyes. Vroom. Suddenly I realize that my train is standing on platform four. I run like the tennis player. It’s not that easy, a few strides later I realize that the game is rugby. Eight steps away, the train begins chugging and I begin the race with hope. I lose. 1996 I would have jumped in. Deeply disappointed, I try and make it back to the top of the bridge. Then suddenly, a slow train approaches platform one. The sprinter gains speed and reaches the train only to be disappointed by an Andheri local. I look around to see if people noticed what had just happened. But that’s the best thing about Mumbai. Nobody cares.

9.06 : That’s the train I have been waiting for. It has finally arrived. I realize that I am standing outside the marked area. I have to rush past the ladies and squeeze into the general compartment. I am almost eating the hair of a man from Bihar, till a sweaty arm finds its way under my nose. We have reached Khar and I have inched two and a half feet inside the compartment. A young Gujarati couple enter the train at this station, along with their 10-month old baby girl. The father is wearing a colourful shirt that would have put Salman of hum apke….to shame. He is holding the baby and looks no older than 24. The mother is short, petite and stern faced. She is also in wedding finery. I see her tailing him faithfully as he squeezes his way through, almost like keeping up the promise she had made to the pundit while doing the saath pheras. She suddenly turns her head to the man behind her and gives him a do-not-mess-with-me stare. The allegedly accused is obviously unaware. She has come fully prepared for this journey, a broach holds her pallu firmly in place, and only when she moves ahead does she reveal a sexy laced blouse back. Meanwhile the kid is bawling, the people in the compartment are almost numb to this. It is Ville Parle station now and the family has managed to move inside. Now here I notice the first major difference from the early nineties. Nobody offers them a seat. I remember then people would just sacrifice their well-earned seat to the mother and child, and even fathers got a similar treatment. The child is crying out loud. Those who are seated are just looking blank, one of them is reading a Marathi daily. We then reach Goregaon and the man who was reading the newspaper gets up. So, the Mumbai spirit is still alive, I say to myself. But I am sadly mistaken, for the man heads for the door, his newspaper folded neatly to a size smaller than A4. His station was about to arrive. As he journeys to the exit, he is elbowed by someone which gets him ranting about how Mumbai has now been taken over by the parapranthiyas(outsiders), and so leading to this rush on a Sunday morning local. I am curious which daily he was reading as he is so full of insights. I have also moved into a comfortable place. There are two places which provide comfort in a train. One on a seat, and the other by the wall. I notice SM Lall’s tuition classes poster which talks about quickly clearing the tenth and twelfth exams LEGALLY. Next to this poster is Katrina Kaif selling a soap on three USP’s. 1) No fillers in this soap like others 2) Highest TFM 78% 3) Graded as best in its category. I begin to think which consumer will go and ask the local bania for all these or even any one of these. For him, it’s the soap with a beautiful girl on the poster. If it was Aishwary or Shilpa Shetty, they would have said that it’s the soap with the heroine. I crack the story behind the poster as I am getting ready for my exit. Hey, the manufacturer paid so much to Ms Kaif that they couldn’t afford a marketing team.

9.42 : I am extruded out of the train. I see many people spit on the platform. If it happened back then it’s sure to happen now. Makes me wonder why people don’t get this urge to spit after a flight. A look around the billboards and I know that private classes are the flavour of the season. One of the classes is interestingly named ‘koshish’. It is the same logic with which people name restaurants ‘swaad’. I take the footbridge, which only the meek 10% do, and come face to face with an overwhelming hoarding of a builder . The picture is of a thick rainforest and the promise is of an abode in nature just seven minutes away from the station. Will people believe this? Well, if they buy that soap they will buy this too. I leave the journey behind.

Now I am looking for an auto……but that’s another story.