My Daily Local Train Experiences....

As you guys know(I hope so), I have to go to Dadar, a suburb in Mumbai, to attend my college. As I stay away from Dadar, in another suburb, I have to travel by a local train. First let me tell you something about the Mumbai suburban local trains. The system is the world's largest, with the trains ferrying about 6-7 million people everyday(yes, everyday!). Without this system, Mumbai will sure be lame. Most of the office goers and students use this service as it is fastest and most affordable, and as these trains are electric, the question of fossil fuels and the price rise is totally ruled out. To know more check out this wikipedia entry.

Every morning as I leave for the college, I try and imagine the amount of rush in the trains. I aim for the 7:04 fast local for CST. I mostly manage to catch it. But sometimes, I miss it and I have to wait for the 7:34 fast local. I'm really impatient once I get inside the train, and so, I try and catch the fast locals. While returning, I catch the 5:37 fast for Badlapur, or 5:49 fast for Dombivli(all suburbs). Fortunately I have been lucky enough to catch these trains.

The worst part is actually boarding the train. I've heard somewhere, that you just have to stand in front of the door and you automatically get pushed into the train. But sometimes, just the opposite happens - you get pushed out of the train when you try to to board the train! And once when I was trying to alight, someone grabbed my shirt and pulled me behind. That was absolutely preposterous!! Yes, alighting can equally difficult at times(but not for me!). Sometimes, because of the crowd, I've to alight from a moving train, which may be dangerous sometimes, especially during the rains.

Inside the train, I have experienced the worst. I sort of studied the crowd presence for a week. But the next week, the scene completely changes. Generally, the crowd while going to the college is comparatively less on thursdays and fridays. But just last week, I bumped into an utterly huge crowd on both the days. I was totally taken aback that moment. The moral of the story? Simple. The crowds are unpredictable!

The easiest part(atleast till now) is the alighting. The train stops for about a minute or two. Half of the people get down when the train is slowing down, and the rest after the train stops. A tip for starters - Never stand in the middle, else your head will bang against the centre pole!

Humph! that's enough for the first dose. I'll be continuing this series as and when something unusual or crunchy crops up. Till then.. tra la la!!