Character 7
A Regular
Commuter In A Local Train In Mumbai
________________
“Platform kramaank 1 chi
local Mumbai Chatrapati Shivaji terminusla jaanaari dheemi local aahe. Hee
local saarv sthankaanvar thambel”.
“Platform kramaank 1 ki local
Mumbai Chatrapati Shivaji terminus jaanewali dheemi local hai. Yah local sabhi
sthaankon par rukegi”.
“Local on platform number 1
is slow local for Mumbai Chatrapati Shivaji terminus. This local will halt at
all stations.”
I
have spent 34 years hearing this announcement. I still plan to hear this
announcement for the next 3-4 years. Then I will be told to retire because I
have neared my retirement age.
By
the way, I am Ganpatrao Mhatre. I work in a welding firm in south Mumbai. I
live in Asangaon – a place eighty kms from Mumbai. Throughout the whole day,
only 23 trains depart from Asangaon station to CST and from CST to Asangaon. In
Mumbai, one has to get up, brush teeth, shave, answer the ‘morning call’,
bathe, have breakfast and take a rickshaw to station, in short do
everything according to the train
timing. I mean, if you have to catch the 6.32
CST Slow from platform number 2, then you have to make sure that you get up
at 5.10 AM, freshen up in 40 minutes, talk to family members (because otherwise
you would get a chance to meet them only at night when you come home tired and
you are no more in a mood to talk to anyone), take a rickshaw to station so
that you reach the station by 6.20 AM and then catch the train. If you happen
to miss any ‘process’ in between, then don’t try to think of completing that
“missed” process anyhow, because then you are bound to miss the train and then
you will have to wait for at least 20 -25 minutes for a train that would be
less crowded to let you in. So you see, the train timings are that important in
a Mumbaikar’s life! Our lives are
bound to the train timings.
Every
day I commute for 5 hrs (to and fro) to earn bread and butter for my family.
This struggle to make ends meet starts with the 6.32 CST Slow. I don’t travel alone. I have a group of 11 friends
who travel together to office. It’s a different thing that not all of us work
in the same office. Neither does everyone speak the same language nor belong to
the same caste. 3 work in a printing press, 2 work in a hotel, 4 work in
bookstores, 1 works in an electronics store, and I work in a welding firm. 3
are Gujuratis, 3 are Sindhis and the rest are Hindu Marathas. The only common
thread that binds us is the 6.32 CST
Slow!
The
struggle starts at 6.20 AM– the time when the train arrives at the home
-platform of Asangaon. For the uninitiated, a
home-platform is a platform from where a train starts its journey. Very few
stations have home platforms. As the
train nears the station, Balwant, Jigness and I scamper into our bogie and
catch our window seats. Since last 34 years I have been sitting on the same
spot – the window seat near the 2nd door, on the left hand side in
the 6th bogie. This act of scampering into the bogie as the train
nears the station is what enthuses me every morning. To tell you the truth,
since we have been travelling in the same train for so many years, we need not
have to rush to get our seats. Our seats are sort of BOOKED. No other group
ever tries to sit on our seats, because those seats are OURS! Jo koi udhar baithega wo maar khayega!!
The
train starts at 6.32 AM sharp. The first thing that we do is chant our prayers
“bolo ganpati bappa moryaa…mangal murti
moryaa…bolo undir mama ki jay”… and then for next 40 minutes we sing
bhajans. Bhajans of Gajanan Maharaj, Hanuman bhagwaan, and Shiv bhagwaan. Those
40 minutes are, I would say, the best minutes of the whole day. In the morning
I don’t get much time to pray to God. So these 40 minutes are very special for
me wherein I can get deeply immersed in the spiritual world. After we are done
with our Bhajans and Kirtans, we distribute the prasad within our group and within other fellow commuters. After I
sit for 45 minutes, I get up and give my seat to my fellow mates. The same is
applicable to all those who had been sitting for more than 45 minutes. In fact,
this is the norm when you travel in a local train in Mumbai. And I think this
is one of the best qualities in all commuters – understanding the pain of
others and giving others a seat to sit. After all, everyone’s feet hurt after
standing for a long time. We also discuss mundane things like job, life,
family, sadness, happiness etc. In fact, there are a few things that we can’t
discuss with our wife or family members but we discuss those things amongst us.
So our journey to office becomes a good platform for us to vent out our inner
feelings. It helps to unload frustrations, anger, sadness...
Whenever
I compare the yester years and today’s times, I feel that there is a vast
difference. Difference in attitudes of people towards others and life in
general, difference in the comfort with which we used to travel, difference in
terms of safety while travelling, etc. In earlier days, people used to feel the pain of fellow commuters. “Get
up after 30 minutes and give your seat to others” was the protocol in
the 80s and 90s. I don’t even have the count of how many times I have given up
my seat to some woman or a small child to sit. Seriously, try giving your seat
to a needy like an old person or a woman or some person in problem and then you
will be amazed to the see the happiness on his/her face. You will feel the blessings heaped on you by that
person.
In
these days of terrorism, we all are so unsure about our journey back home. I
mean, we can’t be sure whether we will have the next dinner at home with our
loved ones or not. The number of accidents has risen sharply. In last 15 days
we saw 3 derailments and 1 severe mishap. These 4 accidents cost 34 lives. What
was their fault? Nothing! We keep praying to God to be kind to us and not keep
us in such painful situations. The terrorist attacks 2 years ago had left 200
people dead and several injured. I still shudder to think of what would have happened
if I had been in that train. In fact, that is the primary reason why we start
our every day journey with prayers and bhajans. I believe that if we do some
good deeds, then God will keep us safe. I know that even the victims of
accidents would have been children of God, but life is so unpredictable. No
matter what you do, you can’t escape what is written in your fate.
Just
one day after the terrorist attack at CST station 5 years ago, when I was
standing at the CST station, I closed my eyes for a few minutes. I thanked
prayed to God for those innocent people who lost their lives for no fault of
their own. My knees went numb and I could feel that my body was just about to
collapse. I told Jigness to lay me down on the station for some time. That was
the first time we missed our Asangaon fast which we used to board while
returning home. Even others from my group empathized with me and felt that we
were lucky to be up and alive. That day, the CST station was almost as crowded
as it is on usual days. That is what I like about Mumbai. No one can stop us.
No one can disrupt the spirit of Mumbaikars.
No one can laugh at us and say “now let me see how much more spirit you guys
have!” I am sure the terrorists got a tight slap on their faces after seeing
the Mumbaikars behave in almost a
normal way. I donated blood the very next day and also donated Rs.500 in a
victims’ relief fund instituted by the government. That was the first time I
didn’t care about where my money was going to end up being spent. That donation
of money and blood made me calm down and value life and love of my dear ones.
The
recent terrorist attacks and the tiffin bomb blasts that happened a few years
on the Western line have taught us many things. The first thing is to be an
alert citizen always. When you travel, make sure that you take a mental picture
of the person who is passing his/her bag to be kept on the shelf. In terms of
safety and security, consider your bogie your home. It is OK to be suspicious
of people who you don’t see in your bogie every day. It is like, when a person
does something wrong, there is going to be a hidden fear in his mind. So, in
case you find such a person, that fear surfaces easily on face and you might
avert a possible attack. This is a simple funda behind catching a pick-pocket
and I am extending the same principle to a possible terrorist attack. There
should be cameras inside the trains too. I know that this can be considered an
impractical idea because at night when the trains are at the car-shed,
miscreants might steal those cameras. But still, at some level, I feel that
installing cameras should help.
The
best times of our life have been those when we celebrate the festivals in the
train. You won’t believe if I said that on Dusshera, we spend 2-3 hours in the early
morning decorating our bogie. The 6.32
CST Slow that we board from Asangaon comes from the car-shed of Asangaon.
At 4.00 in the morning on Dusherra, we go to the car-shed and decorate our
bogie. So, when the train leaves the car-shed and reaches the Asangaon station
platform 2, people are amazed at the beauty of our bogie. We dress our bogie so
nicely! On one hand, we care about our bogie as though it were our daughter and
on the other hand we have deep affection for our bogie as though it were our mother
who carries her children to and fro for so many years! Not to mention the fact
that every passenger in our bogie gets prasad
and a small box of snacks containing Wafers
and Kachoris. Can you imagine how
much it costs us to have such arrangements? Around 20% of our salary of that
month goes into decoration, snacks, etc! But, the satisfaction that we get by
doing our best to enjoy, by revering God and by making fellow passengers happy
on that day makes our effort and money spent, all worth!
Amongst
the other things that I like about railway travel is that it is a
pollution-free way of travel. Enjoying the cool breeze sitting at the window
seat is the nicest way of commuting! Jigness has some small audio player called
IPOD. I like to listen to latest songs on that IPOD. And mind well, when I am
enjoying my favorite songs, I don’t like to be disturbed. In fact, while coming
back from office, after Thane station, I prefer standing at the door and
enjoying my favorite songs. That feeling of happiness, satisfaction is just
something that I can’t describe. My happiness doubles when there is a full-moon
that day! I mean, imagine, there is a continuous blow of fresh air on your
face, moon is shining at its best, the stars are twinkling and you are
listening to your favorite song! On the top of it, just as the train is about
to enter the [1]Parsik
tunnel, a small stream of water splashes water on your face! By the way, I have
counted the total number of bulbs inside the Parsik tunnel. The count
comes to 138.
You
won’t believe if I said that every day is a different day for us. After we are
done with saying our daily prayers and bhajans, we play Rummi. Not all 11 of my group are interested in playing Rummi.
3 others and I like playing cards and the other 7 like solving daily puzzles,
Sudoku, etc. given in the newspapers. While coming back from CST to Asangaon,
our local is a fast local. So every day I make it a point to measure the time
the train takes to cross the Parsik Tunnel. The best timing that
our Asangaon
fast has clocked was some 3 years ago in Diwali. The train took only 46
seconds to cross the tunnel! I was so happy to see our Asangaon fast better its
own record of 49 seconds that it had clocked 5 years ago. You must be thinking
that I am boasting about these numbers. But, believe me, this excitement of
‘measuring the time that the train takes to cross Parsik Tunnel’ has never ever faded from my life. In fact, we
friends place a bet every day on how much time will the train take to cross the
Parsik
Tunnel. I, somehow, have developed a knack of judging how much time the train
would take and that makes me a winner almost every day. And another thing that
we bet on, almost everyday is whether the train will halt at the signal near
Kalyan station.
By
the way, I am really angry at the Railways. First of all, the lesser number of
trains is the biggest problem. Every day around 75 lakh commuters use the
railways as a means of commuting! Can you imagine how big that number is? It’s like saying that one-third of the entire
population of Australia uses the railways to travel to and from office in just
one day! Even then the government does not think of increasing the number of
trains! I agree that the trains are very costly. But aren’t we paying railway
ticket fare and taxes? Our railway-passes cost 5 to 10 % of our salary. The
first class ticket for travelling a distance of 50 kms is Rs.110! The Mumbai
railways has a lot of money, but I wonder where that money goes… if there is a
problem of fitting the increased number of trains into the already set
timetable, then at least increase the number of bogies in trains. I don’t see
any reason why that should be a problem. One of my best friends is a
train-driver and he told me that technically there is no issue in increasing
the number of bogies; it’s just that a lot of money will go into attaching
extra bogies. THEN, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Will anyone answer my question?
And
not the mention the non-working fans. At least 10 % of the fans in the locals
don’t work. And 50 % of the remaining ‘working’ fans are Dhakka-start! Rather Comb-start!!!
A comb needs to be used to start the lazy fans. I feel that it would be better
if the government does something about these issues. It’s better if they don’t
test our patience!
I
really feel that our local is like our third home. I will explain you why. Out
of 24 hrs in a day, we spend 9 hrs in office, 10 hrs at home and 5 hrs in
train. So if you see in that way, office is like our second home and the train
is like our third home. And my group members are like my family members.
Every
morning I thank God for giving me such nice friends – our Asangaon 6.32 CST Slow group- because the
simplicity, honesty and brotherhood that emanates from them is such that only
lucky ones would get. I am that lucky fellow. If you calculate the average
salary of our group, you would be amazed to reach a figure not more than
Rs.7000. Almost every alternate year, we get increments of around Rs. 250 per
month. And still we celebrate that increment with a lot of happiness and
enthusiasm. 5 months ago, the youngest member of our team- Rajesh bhai- got an
increment of Rs. 200. And we made him spend Rs. 400 on Samosas, Kachoris,
Lassi, Pedhaa, and Chivdaa! Can you imagine spending an amount equal to twice
the amount of a monthly increment! It’s just that we find happiness in small
things. We don’t go to malls and food courts to take or give parties. Our
Asangaon local is the mall and food court for us.
We
revel all the time. We quarrel sometimes. We share our sad moments. We celebrate
life. We are there for each other. We are the commuters of Asangaon 6.32 CST Slow, bogie number 6, left
side, door number 2nd.
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