Local Life

If you see a small railway coach, and find hundreds of people sitting, standing or hanging in or around it, then you are no doubt looking at the famous Mumbai Local.
This is not my first stay at Mumbai. I worked here for two years till about a year back, before I came back to my second home Kanpur. But at that time I was lucky enough to give these locals a miss. The distance to my workplace was not much and even that was without the local train in its itinerary. The rare journeys I had to make were planned by making sure that I was at least an hour or two away from the peak hours.
But my love for the city has brought me back to Mumbai and this time fate picked up the places for my home and office such that I don’t have any option other than the Mumbai Local to think of. As per the common man especially from North India, the fact that he is staying at the northern suburbs and his office is in town is way bad than all his worst night mares put together.
For occasional visitors these trains can be a real bad experience with people pushing you around, screaming at you and making bad faces. Indeed it can get scary at times. But if you are brave enough to overcome these initial fears and setbacks you will figure out the proper system and procedures in place and the new people are abused and pushed around only because they are disturbing this dynamic equilibrium.
Here are the few interesting things I figured out in past few weeks of my all new Mumbai experience.

1. First Class and Second Class:

a. As far as the coach is concerned the only difference between the First and Second Class sections of the train is that unlike Second Class, First Class section has cushioned seats, though this does not look like a huge benefit as you might never get a seat to sit in your life time.

b. The few specially marked segments called First Class do have a lot of benefits bundled with them, compared to rest of the Second Class segments.

i. These coaches stop close to the gate or stairs at nearly all the stations. So commuters in these sections have to walk the least to catch the train.

ii. All the fixed platform vendors have their outlets right in front of the area where First Class Section Stops.

iii. At non peak hours if you happen to travel, then you can find far less people in these parts of the train against the rest of the train.

2. Boarding the Local:

a. At the station when ever the train arrives, you see a group of people standing in loosely formed files parallel to the track. Now, boarding a train is big skill

i. Boarding from the first station of the local: If this is the case, make sure you are at the platform atleast 5 to 10 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train. Also try standing in the first line. Standing here though will not ensure that you get a seat but you will surely get a decent place to stand.

ii. If you are boarding from a non-starting station then try being in the second line, and leave the first line for the brave hearts and tough guys of the city. As the train stops, there is a huge rush of people coming out of the train so they take down the first line of defence with them, thus you waiting in the second line are amongst the first ones to get in and have maximum probability of standing on both feet and that too straight. Try boarding at the end or in between and I bet you will find that your one foot is on the floor but can’t find another inch around so that you can place your other foot down.

b. Boarding any train is the total game of speed and determination; if any of the two is missing then, you have to wait for the train till you get a right mix of both the skills. Local stops for just 20 seconds at a station (40 seconds for fast locals) so you know how important the speed is. And to get in along with 20 other competing commuters and that too after making sure you gave way to 15-20 people who are getting out, you have to show determination levels similar to that of an Olympic Gold Medallist.

c. One more thing is that once you start commuting in local and not a random traveller, you will start respecting the time. Like I take a local at 8:08 in the morning and if I get late by even 1 minute, by the domino principle I will be reaching office about 30-40 minutes late. So if you are a commuter in the local you can do anything but disrespect the timings that Railways follow.

3. While on Board:

a. While on board finding a place to sit should surely be considered as the biggest gift of God. It is your day that day; go touch anything it will turn into gold that day.

b. If you are not sitting (which is the most probable case) there is a very high probability that you are standing in the coach. And by standing I mean any position where at least your one leg is on floor and your butt is not resting on anything. Also no matter how comfortably you are standing, still you are starving for some oxygen all the time. Tall people do extract the benefit of their height by sucking out the little amount of oxygen that is available in the upper reaches of the compartment. Shorter guys – God Bless Your Souls.

c. If you are one of the brave and lucky people you can get a chance to stand on the foot board of the local. It is one of the most popular places to travel in local, as you avoid the cramped places inside the compartment and get some fresh air.

d. Then there is an ultimate breed of daredevils who travel on the roof of the coaches, these are seriously “Please Don’t Try At Home” kind of stunts, in which they risk their lives in multiple ways in each single trip.

4. Life in a compartment:

A local compartment gives you an opportunity to look at the culture of the city. Majority of people are commuting with their headphones on. Some people will be singing some nice old songs. You can also find a few religious people singing Bhajans etc. And slowly the whole coach starts singing the same bhajan in sync. In those coaches it looks more like you are travelling in a moving temple than in a local train.

5. Getting Out of the Local:

This is another skilful activity which Mumbai people take up daily. Getting down or not getting down at a station is a decision which one takes even before buying a ticket for the journey. But making sure that you don’t get down at the wrong station or stay stuck in the train at your intended destination is serious business.

a. For getting down at intended station you have to find a guy in front you who is getting down at the same station and have to follow him at all times. And this is to be done at least a station before your destination station else you might run out of time and the train might leave even before you reach the gate. But if another person asks you if you are getting off at that particular station then life is easy, all you have to do is nod in agreement and the pushes from behind will take care of the rest.

b. Now not getting down is a tricky thing, you have two options for avoiding it. You should either switch places with everyone who asks if you are getting down. Remember you have to do this swapping without disturbing the other people around. (Computer Engineers might remember the amount of computation we used to do for the program of swapping two variables without using third, this is a similar case just that instead of variables we are dealing with humans this time). The other option is to stay strong and hold your position no matter how many pushes and punches you get, from people getting in and people getting out.

c. And once you are out of the train you might thing that the plight is over, but the local gives you one last fight though not as severe as before but still a fight. As soon as you come out of the local you will be dragged towards the nearest staircases and then you have to again fight for some space to walk in the direction you intend.

Even after all this Mumbai Local is surely the fastest way to travel, and in just a few weeks time you get used to all this. Then you no more look at it a trouble but as a part of your life. It turns to as normal as breathing, you never notice it but you do. It is surely an experience to feel.