I will begin by stating unabashedly that I was a blob of butter on a plate of pav bhaji in Bombay. Correction: Mumbai. I had to say that, or some people-who-must-not-be-named will eat me alive. I was that nascent, untouched, hopeful globule whose doom is both inevitable and glaringly obvious to everyone staring at it in drooling anticipation. Shady connotations aside, I arrived like a breath of fresh talcum powder, a guy crazy enough to believe he could stay alone in this city and live to tell the tale.
Frankly, the BEST bus gave me a scare the first time I saw one. No, I hadn't been living under someone's rickety floor tiles, so the concept of transportation wasn't entirely unfamiliar to me. It was just that the little town I came from had neither the good fortune nor the adventurous inclination of hosting these 'bus-ke-naam-pe-dhabba's which looked like their singular ambition was to cheerfully burst apart at the seams.
This great metal survivor had in it about a million brave people battling either to stay upright (swaying like pendulums, their hands glued to hand rails), or to not get squashed under the tremendous pressure most of their fellow daredevils were subjecting them to using various parts of their bodies.
The bus conductor was very busy ordering this horde to 'pudhe chala' so he could furtively try to sit on someone. His look of utter disgust at being addressed in any way was only rivaled by the bus driver's one of complete triumph when he managed to leave a huffing, sweaty chaser far behind, enveloped in a cloud of smoke. He then smirked widely at his pitiable million-strong audience via the enormous dusty rear-view mirror. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was the sole purpose of its dull existence. I witnessed everyone from poor bespectacled students to ancient grandmas pressed up against the red beast's innards like peas waiting to burst from their pod. I was nearly launched out of a window myself, but a kindly stranger's shopping was wrapped too snugly about my ankles. And the bus conductor was furtively trying to sit on me.
This was just the start. I hadn’t been to the local train yet.
You’ve probably heard it all before. But if you haven’t actually experienced it, you have no chance of even beginning to appreciate the fact that if you survive the local trains in Mumbai, you’ve conquered the planet. The first time I was on one, in the second class compartment, any vestiges of wide-eyed belief in the good of humanity remaining in my twenty-eight-year-old head were promptly shaken out of me and left behind somewhere on those long, winding tracks.
One of the first to climb into my compartment, I was the lucky guy who gets to stand right in the center of all those bodies, getting sprayed from all sides alternatively by dripping red paan and oh-so-fragrant sweat. I also happened to be the guy who was obviously a stranger to the lifeline of Mumbai. Don’t get me wrong: even if you were born on one of these locals, you could be robbed of everything you hold dear. I was just easiest. I felt a hand groping me in unmentionable places, and thought with a jolt that I was being molested by some sick psycho. Then I felt my wallet slipping out of my pocket and twisted around, determined to catch the idiot. I found my face inches from a pimply innocent-looking teenager’s. His hands were empty. Next to him was a paan-chewing, mustached, red-faced, hostile-looking fellow about three times my weight. All around me were close replicas of this guy. I sighed in defeat. I knew a lost cause when I saw one.
My station finally arrived. I longed for the fresh air outside which I was close to believing had been a dream. I tried to push my way out of the solid, indifferent paan-people’s wall. Milliseconds later, I heard the familiar rattling of wheels beneath me, and every nerve in my body screamed in protest. This could not be happening to me. A few stations along, I was gradually pushed out, and fell on all fours on blessed solid ground. I was lost, hungry, and worse, had no money to buy a ticket back to Andheri. Not that I ever wanted to see another local again in my life.
I saw the train pull away from the station, taking with it the hanging-by-the-tips-of-their-fingers mass of people who gambled with their lives every day. I groped inside my pocket for the phone they'd spared, and called my only friend in all of Mumbai. He sighed, said grudgingly that he'd come fetch me, and muttered some nonsense about how someone called Dadar would have swallowed me whole.
Frankly, the BEST bus gave me a scare the first time I saw one. No, I hadn't been living under someone's rickety floor tiles, so the concept of transportation wasn't entirely unfamiliar to me. It was just that the little town I came from had neither the good fortune nor the adventurous inclination of hosting these 'bus-ke-naam-pe-dhabba's which looked like their singular ambition was to cheerfully burst apart at the seams.
This great metal survivor had in it about a million brave people battling either to stay upright (swaying like pendulums, their hands glued to hand rails), or to not get squashed under the tremendous pressure most of their fellow daredevils were subjecting them to using various parts of their bodies.
The bus conductor was very busy ordering this horde to 'pudhe chala' so he could furtively try to sit on someone. His look of utter disgust at being addressed in any way was only rivaled by the bus driver's one of complete triumph when he managed to leave a huffing, sweaty chaser far behind, enveloped in a cloud of smoke. He then smirked widely at his pitiable million-strong audience via the enormous dusty rear-view mirror. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was the sole purpose of its dull existence. I witnessed everyone from poor bespectacled students to ancient grandmas pressed up against the red beast's innards like peas waiting to burst from their pod. I was nearly launched out of a window myself, but a kindly stranger's shopping was wrapped too snugly about my ankles. And the bus conductor was furtively trying to sit on me.
This was just the start. I hadn’t been to the local train yet.
You’ve probably heard it all before. But if you haven’t actually experienced it, you have no chance of even beginning to appreciate the fact that if you survive the local trains in Mumbai, you’ve conquered the planet. The first time I was on one, in the second class compartment, any vestiges of wide-eyed belief in the good of humanity remaining in my twenty-eight-year-old head were promptly shaken out of me and left behind somewhere on those long, winding tracks.
One of the first to climb into my compartment, I was the lucky guy who gets to stand right in the center of all those bodies, getting sprayed from all sides alternatively by dripping red paan and oh-so-fragrant sweat. I also happened to be the guy who was obviously a stranger to the lifeline of Mumbai. Don’t get me wrong: even if you were born on one of these locals, you could be robbed of everything you hold dear. I was just easiest. I felt a hand groping me in unmentionable places, and thought with a jolt that I was being molested by some sick psycho. Then I felt my wallet slipping out of my pocket and twisted around, determined to catch the idiot. I found my face inches from a pimply innocent-looking teenager’s. His hands were empty. Next to him was a paan-chewing, mustached, red-faced, hostile-looking fellow about three times my weight. All around me were close replicas of this guy. I sighed in defeat. I knew a lost cause when I saw one.
My station finally arrived. I longed for the fresh air outside which I was close to believing had been a dream. I tried to push my way out of the solid, indifferent paan-people’s wall. Milliseconds later, I heard the familiar rattling of wheels beneath me, and every nerve in my body screamed in protest. This could not be happening to me. A few stations along, I was gradually pushed out, and fell on all fours on blessed solid ground. I was lost, hungry, and worse, had no money to buy a ticket back to Andheri. Not that I ever wanted to see another local again in my life.
I saw the train pull away from the station, taking with it the hanging-by-the-tips-of-their-fingers mass of people who gambled with their lives every day. I groped inside my pocket for the phone they'd spared, and called my only friend in all of Mumbai. He sighed, said grudgingly that he'd come fetch me, and muttered some nonsense about how someone called Dadar would have swallowed me whole.
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