Stranded by rains on a Mumbai local: Why being resilient does not help Mumbaikars

Being a sardine in an over-packed railway coach to travel from Thane to Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) is not my idea of travel. Though to be practical, it is the swiftest and cheapest mode. The smell of sweat, the unwitting molestation by co-commuters who mostly mean no harm turns me off. So does the risk of falling off should I not manage to get at least one deep near the door. On Wednesday provided one more reason not to catch a local though I had misguidedly and on a foolish whim took the 10.49 am. Slow from Thane’s platform one. That is where the historic train service from the Boribunder which later became Victoria Terminus (VT) used to halt for a few decades before new platforms were built to cope with more services. My journey was aborted about hall a km after Vidyavihar. I’d rather never have to cope with one again.[caption id=“attachment_1603393” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Caught in rains. PTI[/caption] The train, ten minutes late, moved in fits and starts, and veterans of the horrific travel experience began to predict that things were going to get bad. They linked their predictions to the dark skies. One said, “Sala, pehle din hi problem lagtahai. Mazboorhain” (Damn, problems on the first day itself of the rains, we are helpless). Others nodded agreement and settled down, working their mobiles to inform they’d be late for their engagements. It included a couple in their 70s worried about missing a dentist’s appointment. When stuck at one spot after Vidyavihar, and after an hour’s patience, people began to clamber down, which mostly meant jumping off, risking an injury. Where you landed could be the ankle-deep spread of water, then the mettle aggregate on which the rails rested, or should one missed the two, stumble on the rails of the next corridor. Or, you slid down, holding the vertical pole, then swung inwards and reached the steps and then clambered down. Not all coaches had such exists. Either by instinct or by observing others doing it seems to give the Mumbai commuter that deftness. The elderly, like the couple in their 70s were helpfully advised by the younger ones to stay put. One helpfully suggested that a tooth not pulled was better than a bone or two broken. They nodded, and decided caution was better. Their plight writ large on their face because none knew when the local would resume; it could be any time into the future during the day. In my mid-60s I don’t think I’m too old but neither am I nimble but thought a try wouldn’t kill me. I took hold of the pole, requested the one already off the train to guide me, found the foothold under the coach, slid down and jumped off. Relief washed over me but that was a premature exhilaration. As we walked back to the station we had pulled out of some two hours earlier, I became part of the usual newspaper photograph: a long line of commuters, cuffs of their trousers rolled up, umbrella held, moving like ants in one single file. The water in the gullies between pairs of tracks through which one walked ankle deep, and those who tried to walk on the sleepers, the stride to which one is unused to—one pace is not the same as the space between two sleepers—made it so uncomfortable. Suddenly, one came to the points where tracks change, and the cables, the plates made them slow down, and then catch up with the hip-hop walk. Those with slushy water underneath the feet may have—at least I did—feared prospect of leptospirosis. Those who couldn’t contain themselves longer, and these were the men, of course, indelicately swooped to the first wall and leaned against it to relieve themselves, and it suddenly occurred to me that the flood under my feet was not the fresh, much awaited rain, but a confluence of the human and the natural outpour. There were other dark thoughts entertained about the railways inability to prevent water logging though for ever, Mumbai has been a recipient of copious rains almost every year. Also how the speakers inside the coaches had announced “Next station, Kurla” went quiet and no announcement was forthcoming about the causes and about how long one may be stranded. People called home asking TVs be switched on and information relayed. A number of trains had backed up and were emptied of commuters and we had not guessed that the platform would be too full of people. Vidyavihar doesn’t have more than a pair and it was like another huge overcrowded coach, people as far as you could see. Getting on to the platform needed some circus artists’ capability – balance the umbrella, any other stuff in hand, and find some stone blocks to use as steps. One thing though, everyone was patient. The commuters’ other crisis emerged. Every regular knows the sequence of stations on his route, and which side the platform at the next station would be—a critical knowledge without which exit is impossible; the train would have left before you decided on the right choice—but were just unaware of the way out of the situation. Does one go to the West or the East of the station to look for alternate mode of transport either to barge ahead to Mumbai or get back home? It was a sight, everyone asking almost everyone else for guidance, but many claiming ignorance. A boy who sold vadapaus on the platform was tired of helping the strangers and when my turn came, he just looked blank. Something told me that to the West lay LBS Marg, with likely rickshaws and buses, and to the East lay the Somaiya colleges and the one needed to travel farther on foot to get to a bus, any bus. Oddly, the place on either side is mostly serviced by share autos. A girl approached three lady constables and a male of their species for help and the group, their chat disturbed, just said, “They are share rickshaws; they won’t come. Go to Phoneix Mall (does one exist there?) by walk. It would take 20 minutes” was the counsel offered. Numbed by this helpful advice, people took to whatever direction their instinct told them. At that hour, almost everyone was a stranger to the area. She shook her head in disbelief. What happened to those who got to the LBS Marg I don’t know but one thing was certain – it was a spell of confusion ahead. I played Columbus to find a bus stop only to find that buses were fewer too. Many were stranded because of flooding of the roads south of Vidyavihar, and autos played their games. The resolute stuck, tried to beg or wheedle fares by the meter but the entire arterial road was one huge jam. I kept thinking, why is it that such experiences make Mumbaikar’s resilient—a proud, misplaced claim, indeed—instead of demanding proper management? Why is it that every monsoon they brace for a replay of this crisis which included inordinate delays including due to signal malfunctions? Why should the Mumbai commuter be stoic? Is helplessness the key ingredient to this mental make-up of its citizens? To me, the local, never my best option, would cease being one.