(This is one of several entries I intend to post about my experiences in Bombay and Delhi.)
I had heard a lot about it. Had read in papers how people’s daily lives depended on it. Seen the flashy images in so many movies.
But nothing prepared me for what I came face to face with when my 6:35 Churchgate local began to screech to a halt. It was a fateful evening when I met the fierce reality of travelling in Bombay’s local trains. (I still refuse to call the city ‘Mumbai’ because the word ‘Mumbai’ can’t give you the cosmo, go-getting flavour that only ‘Bombay’ can.)
I casually hung onto the steel pole affixed to the passage of the bogey I was travelling in. I was going downtown to attend my first press conference as a reporter in India’s City of Dreams and I was told that the best and fastest way to travel from Andheri to Oberoi Hotel was to take a local to Churchgate and then take a taxi. What my advisor meant by ‘local’ was local train, but the suffix ‘train’ is considered a wasteful appendage by Bombayites; only an outsider would call a local a ‘local train’. (Just as a Delhiite would drop ‘rickshaw’ from ‘auto rickshaw’ and merely hail, “Auto!”) Since I was moving from North to South - a direction opposite to evening peak-hour traffic – most of the seats were empty and, even though I could sit down, I stood near the door and enjoyed the breeze from the nearby Arabian Sea.
Now, as Churchgate Station approached, I came upon a horrible trait of humans – a trait native only to us Indians perhaps – that haunts me to this day. And as I was standing lost in my thoughts, I first encountered it through the sense of hearing. “Tak-tak-tak-tak!” the sound echoed in my ears like a magnified patter of giant raindrops on tin sheets. Only, the drops were not water but men, women and children hitting the iron floor of the bogey with terrifying speed. In a split-second, I was swept somewhere inside the compartment by the ruthlessly but systematically attacking mass of humanity that descended upon me from both sides. Every ‘occupiable’ inch of berth-space was taken up by this voracious mob, determined to crush anything that came their way. The whole spectacle was over in a matter of seconds. There were a few who, beaten to the punch by their more nimble-footed fellow commuters, could not find any resting place for their eager bottoms and, in exasperation, simply muttered obscenities at their own failure to perfectly time and execute Operation Berth Capture. By now the train had squeezed itself between the two platforms and just taken its last belch before agreeing to a final stop.
Dumbstruck, I slowly popped onto the platform, unable to believe the scale or speed of the entire episode. How could people pour into a train at such speed just like that, with utter disregard to those wanting to alight? Hell, how could well-dressed and (apparently) educated people scamper like raving rats just so they could travel seated? This was not what I had been told what Bombay was all about. If this was the shape that India’s own melting pot had taken, then I for one wasn’t going to be stirred in it. Not in the way the scene at Churchgate unravelled.
As I managed to find a standing space near a ticket-window pillar – without getting jostled around by the milling crowd, that is – my bewilderment continued. I saw tens of hundreds of people coming onto the platform from the subway and from across the road with a determination that belied their harrowing daily routines. Routines they must have been keeping for tiring years. Their gait was bouncy, not from excitement or pride, but from the urge not to miss their almost-always-on-time locals. That they had a few minutes to spare before the departure time did not deter them: they simply had to hurry. As if hurrying about was a prerequisite to being a Bombayite. Even years later, I cannot get a plausible explanation for all the hurrying around going on in Bombay – it must have gotten into their blood!
Leaving the protection of the pillar was not exactly a pleasant thought, but I had a conference to attend and so, plunging myself into the immense sea of people, I made my way to the taxi stand just outside the station. It took me quite a while to brush past that giant swell of human tide. (In fact, it would take me several weeks of practice in the art of dodging and pushing to learn how to negotiate the swarming railway platforms in Bombay while swimming against the tide, literally.)
Thankfully, all my experiences with Bombay and Bombayites were not ghastly – there were several pleasant surprises too. One great thing about Bombay, for instance, is the professionalism of its taxi and rick wallahs (auto-rickshaws, the three-wheeled taxis, are shortened to the spiffy ‘ricks’ in Bombay). The cabbies don’t look at you as if you are from another planet when asked to take you to a place not too far off from where you stand (which is what Delhi cabbies usually do, if they choose not to snicker at you in the first place). You can even hop into a cab before you tell the driver where you want to go. The best part is, you can take a ride in a taxi for less than two tenners – something the Delhi taxi guys would consider blasphemous.
Anyway, I took the taxi to Oberoi and, as the Premier Padmini cruised along Marine Drive, forgot about the hubbub at Churchgate and looked dreamily around me. This was Bombay, real Bombay! For Marine Drive and its line-up of skyscrapers is the scene almost every Bollywood flick shows you when your beloved rustic hero is transplanted from his humble village to the merciless, fast-paced world of a glamorous city. And which city in India can boast of glamour other than Bombay! I looked at the beautiful, placid sea to my right and envied the smartly dressed walkers on the pavement alongside. Especially the business tycoon-types who seemed to be regulars around those hours, many of them restraining their Dobermans or Alsatians at the leash. What would happen if they let go of the raring canines? I felt amused at the thought as the taxi swung into the entrance of the hotel.
Not wanting to tip the heavy-mustachioed janitor, who made for the taxi to open the door for me, I thwarted his move by flicking the taxi door open quickly and getting out in time. I paid the fare and quietly slipped into the hotel lobby. I’m not one of those (often fake) blue-blooded creatures used to other people opening doors for them, you see. I’m also not a person who allocates a good part of their meagre earnings for tipping people (which might be the real issue, actually)!
My first press conference started (almost) on time. Quite unlike those Delhi affairs that were pretty often late by half an hour to three full hours – the equivalent of an insipid Hindi movie. Other professional interactions that I later had with people in Bombay, whether it was a one-on-one meeting or a photo shoot, were mostly punctual. Bombay is more punctual than Delhi, I had always heard that, but now I could feel the difference myself. On that count, the city scored another brownie point in my appraisal book.
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