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Only in a city like Mumbai is it possible perhaps to have a unique experience in the train. They range from the most absurd to
ridiculous to unimaginable elsewhere in India or the world. I hope by now you have begun to wonder what I am trying to say.
For every working women in Mumbai, to reach her destination the use of local train is most important part of her journey. It may be morning, afternoon or evening. This is the fastest mode of transportation for the people of Mumbai, the local trains are its lifeline. If they run, the city runs or it does not. Coming from one end of the city to work in other parts of the city.
Take a trip once through this maze of local trains and in a ladies compartment (Second class if possible) its a different experience altogether. The journey begins with the women catching a particular train at a particular time in the morning for work, its regular like clockwork. There are exceptions to the rule like me, but that is another story.
The timing is crucial if you wish to get in and get inside the compartment to sit or to be near your friends or just to find enough space to stand properly to be able to get off at the required station. Otherwise you are left hanging near the door with no chance of moving in towards the seats.
After settling in as much as possible they check out if their friends are near and grab their bags for safe keeping till they get off. The hi’s and hello’s move onto chatting and catching up with each others lives in the office and home front. Some read, knit, stitch, sing bhajans or film songs. You come across the most sweet voices that can easily win an award in Sa Re Ga Ma like programmes. There is laughter and voices mingling together. Some just stand and stare at what is going on maybe with envy or wrath according to the mood of the individual on the given day. They could easily pick a fight with the other women who seem to be enjoying themselves.
To a new comer it may seem that they all work at the same office but that is not so. As the conversation proceeds, you can catch hints that they come from different fields and work at different offices and levels and come from different strata of the society. But have been catching the same trains form quiet sometime and have established a camradarie not witnessed anywhere else, even in offices.
Discussions, advise, rumours, marital problems and solutions, humour, recipes, songs, placing orders for food etc., office gossip and politics all float at the same time. The vast experience of the older ladies advising the young colleagues/ friends are heard and heeded.
Emergency shopping can be also done in these trains. You can buy almost anything and although there is not much of a bargaining on the quality of the product. From pins, hair
pins, ribbons, clips, jewellery, clothes, undergarments, shoes, purses, plastic covers for everything under the sun, vegetables, also fish, herbal medicines, agarbatties, pens, pencils, books,
exercise books, eatables, sarees, dress materials, hankies, you name it you find somebody selling it.
Many women move out of homes early in the morning so evenings in the trains means catching up with buying and chopping vegetables on the way home, saving precious time. Fights witnessed and are part of the every day travel experience but these women are also very helpful to the sick, newcomers and elderly. No matter how crowded the train they will move a little more and find a centimetre or
a millimetre to accommodate another individual. The rough goes well with the smooth.
These women travel, without missing a beat, timing the journey exactly from home to office even if they change trains and back again. An entire day, a routine for tomorrow is another day. Life goes on, you come away with the feeling that the train journey has been a life experience - a lifetime of experience can be felt and touched in an hour and half of journey.
Take it someday, an advise for those who have never travelled by train and feel life touch you in places and thoughts you may never experience anywhere else.
BY HARPREET KAUR
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