Of Life, Likeness and Local Trains!

One of the reasons I decided to intern in Delhi instead of Mumbai, in my fourth year, was the Mumbai local train phenomenon. During my AZB Bombay internship, I woke up every morning in Mumbai dreading the commute to work. The whole 'standing in less than 0.5 cubic feet of space - smelling a whole array of assorted unsavory 'fragrances' (?) - arriving in office with sweaty clothes' combo didn't do much for me. Even on the days I managed to slip out early from office, the feeling of freedom was sullied by the prospect of the journey back home. It was in Mumbai that I decided that 'I hate local trains'. A couple of days ago, I changed that perspective.

I was travelling with my mom to Kalyani for a wedding. It was bloody hot in the morning .... and the train, while not bursting at its seems, was quite full. Somehow, both my mom and I managed to get seats, although in different places. Now here's the catch - in Mumbai - a seat for three means 'a seat for THREE'. If you aren't one of those three, too bad! In Cal, a seat for three is acknowledged to mean 'a seat for 4'. There’s no rule anywhere which mandates this. It is just the way it is; the way it has been for a long, long time …. This, to me, exemplifies the difference between, at one level, the two local train experiences, and at another, between the two cities.

Close to where I sat, there were a family travelling to Naihati; an HSBC salesperson travelling to Kalyani and an old schoolteacher travelling to Kanchrapara. At Ichhapur, an old couple boarded the train ... and instantly, the old gentleman next to me stood up and said 'Arre ... Bose moshai ... Koto din por dekha ....' It turned out that these two gentlemen had been commuting pretty regularly on this route for close to the last 10 years [trivia picked up by shameless eavesdropping!]. They exchanged stories.... they enquired about each other's families .... and suddenly, the old gentleman next to me asked me 'Aapni kothai jachhen?' I told him ... and he started telling me about a wedding he had attended in Kalyani a few months ago ... One of the ladies from the family travelling with us also pitched in ... about her 'wedding travels' ... Before we knew it, we were all animatedly discussing Bengali weddings, the Kolkata Knight Riders and how Marx would shudder at today's CPI(M) .... It was then that it suddenly hit me .... I was quite LIKING this journey in a filthy local train in cramped quarters on a humid day .... how? why? I don’t know ... maybe it was because the journey was 'humanized' ... for once, I wasn't surrounded by nameless, faceless people on a crowded local train. For once, they were people .... individuals ... whom maybe I would never meet again ... but who, for that journey, were very REAL to me .....

Professor Morrie Schwartz once told Mitch Albom - "The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are ...". On that train, I understood what he meant ....