...Yeh local sabhi sthaanakon par rukegi!!

I did the trip from Dadar to Kalyan (and back) a couple of days ago. Honestly, NOTHING else could have motivated me more than that to write this!!

Local train travelers have a completely different lifestyle. Their existence totally hovers around the railway timetable – the further away you stay, the more it grips onto you!! Now since Junior college, I have always had friends who’d travel from far off lands everyday – heard their tales about the fascinatingly overcrowded 9:15 morning local, how they almost got thrown out, how they bumped into an old friend on the station and I’d go, “Damn why don’t I ever have the pleasure of such a conversation!!” But then I’ve had my school, junior college, graduation college, my workplace and my B-School, all within a radius of a kilometer from my home (can you believe the luck!!) So I had to steal my few trips on the 5 crore ki gaadi whenever I could and believe me, the sense of pride and independence it gave me back then, wasn’t even funny!! This was just reinforced on my trip to Nagpur. First I traveled to Nagpur ALONE, then my little cousins asked me with complete admiration – you travel by locals in Bombay?!!! On my casual yes, they elevated me to an almost superhero status!!

If you observe, you can broadly classify the local junta into 3 categories.
First there are the Frequent Fliers. These are the ones that have train friends, set timings – everyday users basically. They know precisely which side the nth station comes (followed by an explanation why – like you care!) The women in this category are monsters – nudge them and you’d wish you were dead. Very adeptly, they peel vegetables and read and sing songs as if they were at home. They storm and jostle you for the 4th seat like it is their birthright – they own that train, period.

Then there are Irregulars like me – gladly not as emotional as the first kind. They don’t get so personal when it comes to shoving you around and understand your plight when you do! They just make peace with the discomfort – especially when the weather adds some special effects to the experience like charring sunlight or streams of rain pouring in through open windows and doors. That’s when you realize what God meant when he said I want you even smell like a human being.

And the last is my favourite – Novices. Now these are the rats who have absolutely NO clue whether they are heading north or south. They gape hungrily at the train route charts by the door and pray with eyes open (can’t afford to close them!) with an expression like they are getting a root canal, that they get this over and done with asap!! You just can’t miss catching them go white in the face when they see the sea of humanity pours in at Dadar or Andheri – ‘Yup! We’re definitely going to die!’

However clichéd it might sound, but the locals are undoubtedly the circulatory system of the city. The Mumbai City Railway network caters to 6.3 million commuters everyday. It has the highest passenger density in the World, ahead of even Tokyo (the only other ones I’ve had the pleasure of using) and Seoul. Almost half of the total daily passengers using the entire Indian Railway System are from Mumbai Suburban Railway system alone (sea of humanity – told you!) When the recent bomb blasts along the Western Suburban line shook up the city, I know none of us wanted to hear the words “spirit of Mumbai city” again for a year!! We helped each other regardless of caste and creed and thankfully there was no spill over of violence later. But here, I applaud the authorities at Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd (MRVC Ltd) and the Ministry of Railways for working non-stop all night long and restoring upto 90% of the damaged tracks – all back in full use by dawn. Like a regular day, each one, man or woman stepped out and ran the platforms to catch their blessed local to work next morning. If the principle motive of terrorism is to instill fear – not happening here dude!! That’s the damn spirit we were talking bout!!

So these trains will keep zipping across the stretch of the city no matter what, as Mumbaiikars sing bhajans and haggle for clips and kerchiefs in there. I’m sure whoever said life is a journey might have had the local train routine sometime in his life!!

Adios!

A Letter to my Friends

It took me 23 years, a B-School and 16 complete samples to understand that friendship is undoubtedly the most complex relationship between people – may or may not be of the same sex (in fact it’s worse if it’s the latter!!)

I wouldn’t want to compare the last two years of my life to any from before. School – well there were bigger issues like homework and growing up there. College – that is always the chiller gang that never meant serious business!! I’m not an engineer so all we did was nothing all day and still went to bed peacefully every night! (Boy!! Those were the days!!!) The B-School was the one that changed my perspective about life and the way I will live it henceforth. The fact that I have no time to breathe today gives me comfort; makes me feel useful. I think it becomes a tendency with our lot – to look so busy and wired up even if you are just going to get photocopies... it just becomes our fixed expression I guess!!

And here is where I found love, pain, support and rock-solid friendship – ALL on that one table of our cafeteria! Where a day began with a cup of chai, poha (with chutney) and gossip and ended with how many submissions due over the week – where lunch hour was WAR, survival of the fittest, fastest and strongest – where making a dinner or clubbing plan was equivalent to making a business plan to enter the steel industry – where managing egos taught us the biggest lessons an HR prof couldn’t in his lifetime – where ip messenger was oxygen and CS and NFS were fuel for survival...

The video was where I started to truly reminisce – a collage of all our happiest (and most candid) moments. And I realised just how much I loved my two years here. Not only for the acads, but also for the gamut of people I met. Being a part of a rather enthusiastic bunch, we were always the noisiest, most boisterous lot. Now I understand what made us this way. We are good – really good each one of us - at what ever we do, in our special way – we aren’t the ones that stay quiet. And this became that silent competition under all the friendship – not one-upmanship mind you – but a quiet upward push that brought out the best in each one of us every step along the way. And I really want to thank each one of you for that – for that push and for the prop up every time it was needed.

I’ve not been a good kid – I’ve been upto some serious mess and managed to ruin some wonderful relationships of mine with my very own hands. I’ll always regret it. If you observe, it always takes double the effort to repair than to make! (five times I’ll say!!) This gave me life’s biggest lessons – ‘impulsive’ is always an adjective for ‘idiot’ – NOTHING else can follow that word!! So be careful the next time you open your mouth – once it’s out, it can’t be reversed.

I also wanted to say sorry – for each time I seemed impossible to understand and even worse, control. And more importantly I’m sorry for each time I built up that mountain on your head called expectations and not lived upto it. It was hard to understand the high pitch emotions that ran through this lot (I’m sure you all will agree); I was just another cause and victim!! So after all the cold undercurrents, fights, arguments, sarcasm... I’m calling it PEACE!! Bury that goddamn hatchet – you’ll have better things to worry about like deadlines and targets!!

I said goodbye to some of my closest pals today – who’ve been as close as family – I have no idea when I’ll see them next. It’s a strange feeling – I tried telling myself I didn’t even know they existed two years ago (didn’t work!!) I can’t believe you are going... that’s all I could get myself to say!

Before I get senti again, here’s wishing you all the very best! Whichever part of India you are (Dubai for our exported goods!!), they’ll always be a bunch of guys somewhere in this country who’ll be watching after you (I say this for all of us!!)

Do your best and have a good life!! So until we meet again...