8:47 Kasara Fast

It was May 2,2007. An evening well spent. I caught up with a couple of my B-school batch mates – Ritesh who was blandishing his weighty camera around trying to capture the sprawling city – Aamchi Mumbai and Lisa err ..Pooh-2 who was in the city as well.

Anyways as the clock stuck 9 PM, I thought wisdom fairy would advise any commonsensical individual out of touch with the crowded worm like trains of the city to head back abode. The edifice of Mumbai Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus with the triumphant figure of progress towering over the city, Jaguar shaped water outlets and the two large lions welcoming you at the gate have always beguiled my iris in to a feeling of enchantment. As I headed in to the train terminus and in to the ticket counter and gazed up the beautiful British work on the ceiling, I would but stare in approbation for the roof this section still sprightly as it might have been in the hey days and of days when white marble was the preferred material of construct to titivate the ceiling.

After a menacingly long stay at the ticket counter, I headed back in to train terminus. This colossal structure can distress those uninitiated whose first glimpse of the city invariably is this humongous edifice with translucent roof that conjures up an eerie yet idyllic ambiance. The stained glass windows never fail to bewilder me. A swift glance at what was in store for me – 8:47 F N (interpretation 8:47 fast for Kasara). A glance towards the clock indicated 9:20 PM. A smirk adorned my countenance, this is central railway , this is Mumbai!

Platform number 5. Crowd started pouring - ready to pounce like a predator on a creepy crawly – the Mumbai train! A beam of light conjures in the distance. The light gets sharper and assumes a circular shape. This sight is closely followed by a familiar sound – the bellow of the train and the rhythmic beating of the metal wheels against the iron track. As the train caresses itself between the concrete platforms, the predators pounce. Using door handles and the vertical iron rods for supports the clutches of these predators grasp on to the running worm, hungry for a place on the wooden bench. Four people squeeze in on benches which are made for 3. This is Mumbai. This is General second class compartment of the Subarban local train! The train finally came to a standstill…and the platform was almost empty!

My mind must have numbed over the period of next few minutes…err seconds? For I next found myself all cramped and crouched one place away from the window in a vantage position for I would receive all the odoured air on my face as the train chugs away. I was not as ill-fated as the teen seated in front of me who looked diffident and profusely sweating – perhaps trying to figure out the mechanics of the Shankar fan as to why the air flew reverse towards the roof instead of showering the coolness of its love over him!

The person next to me on the window seat looked like one of those characters in the movie the politicians send out as goons. Thankfully he was asleep and ..err yes snoring. The person diagonally opposite at the window was at an unfinished crossword in one of the Devanagiri scripts perhaps left incomplete from the morning journey. As the train refused to budge from the platform more people poured in trying fill every crevice. The leg space that I proudly occupied till now gave way to 3 more pair of legs!

Thud! The train was mobile…I sighed a sign of relief for my pores which were reeking sweat will now undergo a break! Over the chug of the train I could hear my neighbour – 30 something - on my right (away from the window) asking his hubby the specifics of the culinary preparations that await him and ensuring that everything was done – just right! While my goonish neighbour managed to sleep through all the cacophony, the people who had snatched my legspace away started conversing about the poor state of affairs of the Indian cricket team. Over the chug and expletives I could make out that the entire Indian cricket team needed to be sacked!

A few stations later – I never knew how time flew off – I was either engrossed in The Economic Times or disturbed by the not-so-hush conversations floating around or trying to makes sense of ads which urged you to call Baba Bengali for all your ailments! – Mulund had arrived. Prudence angel appeared once again urging me to make my way to the door else I would be stranded in the train. I squeezed past corpses, which were drenched in sweat – Shankar fan takes the credit for this- stomped a couple of hundred legs and finally made it to point were I felt safe of my egress.

Thane arrived. Avalanche. I didn’t move a muscle and I was landed safely on to the platform!!! As I stood there taking toll of what just happened, I saw this worm leaving the platform bulging with people hanging on to whatever they can hold on to…..