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One of my good friends reminded me about this song when I mentioned about the diversity in Mumbai. Well, after the eventful first day, I was eagerly awaiting the days that would come ahead. The second day began on a relatively expected note. As I got into the appalling traffic, I was flooded with an overpowering feeling of déjà vu. Everything about the streets seemed to be unchanged. It is like the streets of this city are eternally frozen in time and almost every successive day seems to a repeat telecast from the previous day.
Little did I realize that no matter how predictable the entire day seemed, there would still be something about this place that would defy my expectations. So much of the spirit of Mumbai had already been captured by my experience on the very first day itself. What could be more scary than trying to capture a history of centuries in a swish? Yes, later during the day I was hit by an occurrence so hard that it has left an indelible mark in my mind, almost to a point of no return.
Fateful was my tryst with the Mumbai suburban local train! Believe me, it is not an event, it is a phenomenon! No amount of storytelling and Bolly/Holly-wood coverage can ever come close to giving you the real experience of travelling in a local train. Getting into this not-a-fairy-tale train is by no means a joke. Even as one approaches the station, the density of the crowds almost gives one a feeling of stratosphere (low-oxygen-levels). Coming back, it seemed like the entire humanity had conspired to arrive at this particular station on the very fateful day when I had chosen to make my local train debut! I was desperately swimming against the tide of the home-bound rushing Mumbaikars.
Let me deviate for a minute. Even as I was preparing myself for the destined rendezvous with the overpowering phenomenon called Mumbai locals, I had sufficiently managed some background research. I have listed the key findings below:
•The local trains help over 6.6 million people commute on a daily basis!
•The local train routes are spread over 464 kilometers... and people call them local trains....@#$%^&*()!!
•The peak hours (at least 6 to 8 hours every day qualifies as peak time!!) are the most excruciating moments in the life of any travelling passenger – people say it is worse than marriage!!! (no comments)
•The subtle difference between a first class coach and a general coach, apart from the few bucks, is the feeling involved - nothing else. In both the places you get kicked – you could at the best choose between getting kicked by a slipper/foot or by a polished shoe. In both the places your ADA (Aroma Detecting Agent - read as ‘nose’) would be put though stringent testing – either it would be undiluted sweat or a confusing mix of deodorant spray!!!! (I know it sounds disgusting, but yes, ‘Welcome to the Mumbai world’)
Having drained out my inner strength with this disturbing analysis from a ‘friend’ (with trepidation I still choose to call him my friend even after this episode), I summoned my remaining courage to get onto the platform. Once I made it to the platform, life was in automatic mode. I have a feeling that the person who invented the automatic transmission for automobiles had spend considerable/some time on the Mumbai local platforms! All I had to do was stand, the world moved on and it moved on real fast! Trains came and went, some people were moved, others weren’t. Finally, the train that I was to take arrived. Trust me; people were not hanging from the train. The train was trying to hang around the people... I embraced my prized Wipro laptop (fortunately for me, the unfortunate experience of a dear friend had warned me that a lost laptop would make my pocket lighter by Rs. 5,000). The rest of the things were taken care of (like I told you, life was in automatic mode then). I was taken into the train, I was made to stand and I was made to move.
Stations came and went and I was made to create space for incoming and outgoing crowds. The same set of faces continued to hang outside the train, yet the faces inside kept changing! It seemed like people were passing through each other. Finally we approached my destination. All I needed to do was identify the crowd getting down at the station and again things were in the automatic mode. I was brought down from the train, taken towards the exit and was left outside the station near the auto stand, sweating profusely. Apart from the copious amounts of water, I had lost another chunk of my sanity...(after my reverse gear street race - explained in the previous installment). I convinced myself that I had enough of it to last me a lifetime. All those people who commute by those trains every day, I know not how many lives they must be going through in a single lifetime...
You must be wondering why this episode should take such a significant portion of my experiences during the entire week. Well, like I told you before, a Mumbai local is a phenomenon by itself. You should get into it to appreciate what it is like. Moreover, it changed my perspective on things. In short, it was a life changing melodrama that unfolded that day. I swore by the metal in those rail tracks that to the extent possible I would use every excuse in the book to avoid travelling by the famed (rather infamous) Mumbai locals. I have managed, till date... I went through the entire week in a haze, with unique experiences every now and then, which appeared pale in comparison to the harrowing experience that I underwent in the local train!
Allow me to now cover another equally titanic (if not more!) phenomenon in Mumbai. Every shade of lipstick fails and fades away when this creation ‘touches’ their lips. It is the ‘foundation’ that gives every Mumbaikar the fuel to face the daily grind! Well friends, let me introduce you to the Marilyn Monroe of the acting community, the Princess Diana of the ruling community – It is the luscious Vada-Pav! Apart from the fact that everyone wants them, the decisive factor that gives Vada-Pav a higher ranking compared to the other two mentioned similies is that it is ‘available to anyone who wants it’! It is that very good friend which keeps people engaged before they board the trains, during the train journey and as they walk the final distance towards their homes. I have no statistics to showcase the business implications, but my gut feeling says that this has the potential to become another MacD, something on the lines of Chennai’s Saravana Bhavan! (watch out for any Tamilian – their eyes would have popped out with pride on reading the previous line...)
Moving on... If you were to ask me as to what is that one mammoth difference that I see between Bangalore and Mumbai, I would say the word is ‘HOT’! Everything is ‘hot’ here... The weather is definitely hot, the houses are hot, the streets are hot, tempers are hot and well... even the people are ‘hot’ here. Whoever said that “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder!”, well, let me tell you – “In Mumbai, beauty lies in every nook and corner” You can see beauty emerging from the local trains, you can see beauty engrossed in the local kirana shops, you can see beauty gliding through the shopping malls, you can see beauty bargaining (‘fighting’ or ‘negotiating’, whichever you prefer) with the sabji-wala... The moral of the story is that beauty is all around – you just need to keep your eyes open!
The very thought of Bangalore makes me want to go there for a few days... I look at my travel plans and voila – Two weeks have gone by and I am indeed making it to Bangalore this weekend! Not sure if I am excited or not, but for sure I am looking forward to it... Need to take a chill pill for a couple of days and get back charged to this furnace, this gold filtering furnace called Mumbai.
Little did I realize that no matter how predictable the entire day seemed, there would still be something about this place that would defy my expectations. So much of the spirit of Mumbai had already been captured by my experience on the very first day itself. What could be more scary than trying to capture a history of centuries in a swish? Yes, later during the day I was hit by an occurrence so hard that it has left an indelible mark in my mind, almost to a point of no return.
Fateful was my tryst with the Mumbai suburban local train! Believe me, it is not an event, it is a phenomenon! No amount of storytelling and Bolly/Holly-wood coverage can ever come close to giving you the real experience of travelling in a local train. Getting into this not-a-fairy-tale train is by no means a joke. Even as one approaches the station, the density of the crowds almost gives one a feeling of stratosphere (low-oxygen-levels). Coming back, it seemed like the entire humanity had conspired to arrive at this particular station on the very fateful day when I had chosen to make my local train debut! I was desperately swimming against the tide of the home-bound rushing Mumbaikars.
Let me deviate for a minute. Even as I was preparing myself for the destined rendezvous with the overpowering phenomenon called Mumbai locals, I had sufficiently managed some background research. I have listed the key findings below:
•The local trains help over 6.6 million people commute on a daily basis!
•The local train routes are spread over 464 kilometers... and people call them local trains....@#$%^&*()!!
•The peak hours (at least 6 to 8 hours every day qualifies as peak time!!) are the most excruciating moments in the life of any travelling passenger – people say it is worse than marriage!!! (no comments)
•The subtle difference between a first class coach and a general coach, apart from the few bucks, is the feeling involved - nothing else. In both the places you get kicked – you could at the best choose between getting kicked by a slipper/foot or by a polished shoe. In both the places your ADA (Aroma Detecting Agent - read as ‘nose’) would be put though stringent testing – either it would be undiluted sweat or a confusing mix of deodorant spray!!!! (I know it sounds disgusting, but yes, ‘Welcome to the Mumbai world’)
Having drained out my inner strength with this disturbing analysis from a ‘friend’ (with trepidation I still choose to call him my friend even after this episode), I summoned my remaining courage to get onto the platform. Once I made it to the platform, life was in automatic mode. I have a feeling that the person who invented the automatic transmission for automobiles had spend considerable/some time on the Mumbai local platforms! All I had to do was stand, the world moved on and it moved on real fast! Trains came and went, some people were moved, others weren’t. Finally, the train that I was to take arrived. Trust me; people were not hanging from the train. The train was trying to hang around the people... I embraced my prized Wipro laptop (fortunately for me, the unfortunate experience of a dear friend had warned me that a lost laptop would make my pocket lighter by Rs. 5,000). The rest of the things were taken care of (like I told you, life was in automatic mode then). I was taken into the train, I was made to stand and I was made to move.
Stations came and went and I was made to create space for incoming and outgoing crowds. The same set of faces continued to hang outside the train, yet the faces inside kept changing! It seemed like people were passing through each other. Finally we approached my destination. All I needed to do was identify the crowd getting down at the station and again things were in the automatic mode. I was brought down from the train, taken towards the exit and was left outside the station near the auto stand, sweating profusely. Apart from the copious amounts of water, I had lost another chunk of my sanity...(after my reverse gear street race - explained in the previous installment). I convinced myself that I had enough of it to last me a lifetime. All those people who commute by those trains every day, I know not how many lives they must be going through in a single lifetime...
You must be wondering why this episode should take such a significant portion of my experiences during the entire week. Well, like I told you before, a Mumbai local is a phenomenon by itself. You should get into it to appreciate what it is like. Moreover, it changed my perspective on things. In short, it was a life changing melodrama that unfolded that day. I swore by the metal in those rail tracks that to the extent possible I would use every excuse in the book to avoid travelling by the famed (rather infamous) Mumbai locals. I have managed, till date... I went through the entire week in a haze, with unique experiences every now and then, which appeared pale in comparison to the harrowing experience that I underwent in the local train!
Allow me to now cover another equally titanic (if not more!) phenomenon in Mumbai. Every shade of lipstick fails and fades away when this creation ‘touches’ their lips. It is the ‘foundation’ that gives every Mumbaikar the fuel to face the daily grind! Well friends, let me introduce you to the Marilyn Monroe of the acting community, the Princess Diana of the ruling community – It is the luscious Vada-Pav! Apart from the fact that everyone wants them, the decisive factor that gives Vada-Pav a higher ranking compared to the other two mentioned similies is that it is ‘available to anyone who wants it’! It is that very good friend which keeps people engaged before they board the trains, during the train journey and as they walk the final distance towards their homes. I have no statistics to showcase the business implications, but my gut feeling says that this has the potential to become another MacD, something on the lines of Chennai’s Saravana Bhavan! (watch out for any Tamilian – their eyes would have popped out with pride on reading the previous line...)
Moving on... If you were to ask me as to what is that one mammoth difference that I see between Bangalore and Mumbai, I would say the word is ‘HOT’! Everything is ‘hot’ here... The weather is definitely hot, the houses are hot, the streets are hot, tempers are hot and well... even the people are ‘hot’ here. Whoever said that “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder!”, well, let me tell you – “In Mumbai, beauty lies in every nook and corner” You can see beauty emerging from the local trains, you can see beauty engrossed in the local kirana shops, you can see beauty gliding through the shopping malls, you can see beauty bargaining (‘fighting’ or ‘negotiating’, whichever you prefer) with the sabji-wala... The moral of the story is that beauty is all around – you just need to keep your eyes open!
The very thought of Bangalore makes me want to go there for a few days... I look at my travel plans and voila – Two weeks have gone by and I am indeed making it to Bangalore this weekend! Not sure if I am excited or not, but for sure I am looking forward to it... Need to take a chill pill for a couple of days and get back charged to this furnace, this gold filtering furnace called Mumbai.
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