A Local Story…

I generally travel by first class from thane to matunga while coming to college. But my quarterly pass had expired and I had to come to college for hardly 10 days in that month. So I decided to take a second class pass for that month.

When you travel in Mumbai, you are frequently known by the train you travel. So even if you don’t know the name of the person, you always address him as, “ arey woh !! 8.19 wala !!” (8.19 being the Thane-CST train which departs thane station at 8.19 am). So like that I am a 8.09 guy.

That day I went early to catch the train as soon as it entered the station. If you don’t want to stand and travel , this is what you have to do. The first class compartment generally gets filled up in 50 seconds of the train coming to a halt. I thought the second class would get filled up even faster. ( There is a general notion that Second class is more crowded; Its completely untrue… I was about to find that out.)

So I jumped in the train and to my surprise I found that I easily got the highly venerated window seat. (the one in the right direction , not the opposite). There was no middle aged gujju man from mulund who had occupied it. ( If there is anyone Thane people hate the most then it’s the people who occupy the window seat by boarding at mulund)

I somehow started liking this compartment inspite of the fact that there were no cushion seats. They don’t really matter, you know.

Then suddenly a group of 8-9 middle aged men banged into the compartment. They were normal working middle class men; mostly maharashtrians. They occupied seats next to me and reserved a few seats for their other friends. Then somebody from the other side of the compartment shouted out, “ JAI MNS!!!” to a guy sitting next to me. He smiled and said, “ JAI CONGRESS!!”. The election results were out the day before and Congress and MNS had badly beaten Shiv Sena and BJP. So this was going to be the hot topic to discuss and I could sense that.

All of them were supporting different parties and they had their reasons. The congress supporters said that they opted for stability, where as the MNS supporters claimed that the change was about to come. The shiv sena supporters were upset for more than one reason. But they were not the only ones who were upset. Even the congress supporters weren’t very happy about the results.

Somewhere deep down inside each one of them knew that things were not going to be different and they were more upset because they are the worst affected by all this. They do their bit by exercising their right to vote yet there is no drastic change in their situation. They still have to travel day in and day out in the overcrowded compartments, they have to work their ass off in their offices so that they will get a good pension that will help them lead a peaceful retired life, they have to educate their children and hope that they don’t face the same lifestyle as they do. Some of them might have had a fight with their wife or neighbour , kids not listening, boss is nagging, had fight with a guy on the way to station, and so many countless other things are there which can multiply the irritation and frustration they have.

Yet there is not a hint of frustration on their face.

It is like the look forward to meeting their friends in the train every morning. That is probably the most amazing time they have in the entire day. And they camaraderie they share is something equivalent to that shared by aamir, saif and akshaye in Dil Chahata Hai. Trust me. It is a treat to watch. They will poke fun at each other, crack jokes, plan outings and do so many things in those 40-50 mins they share together. It is this local train that brings them together and keeps them together.

The bomb-blasts taking place in train do not instill fear in them. They are not afraid of that. They government is impotent; it doesn’t affect them. 31 crores are being spent on a terrorist to keep him alive ; they are not bothered.

And why should they be bothered. They do everything they can do. But after one point you just get saturated by doing the right thing again and again. They won’t stop doing the right thing. But now it really doesn’t matter to them. They have all become indifferent and immune to everything. That is what Mumbai does to you. There is no time for emotions. It is a ruthless city. These people have a very strict schedule to follow and so they derive fun and laughter from anything and everything. Anything bad happens they just cover up the wounds and move on. They have got in the habit of getting used to everything. And its not just them. All of us to a certain extent can relate to this emotion.

Enough is enough and all that big talk is okay. But at the end of the day each one of us has some job to do and so all those things take a back seat.

And even though its saddening to see such indifference, we really cant blame ourselves. All we can hope that things will improve and a certain section of people will do what they are supposed to..