Trains are the fastest way to get around Mumbai.  They are also the most crowded, with over 6 million commuters traveling daily rail.  According to wikipedia, 3500 die annually from unsafe riding practices.  I’ve seen some of these practices: guys riding on top of the coaches or hanging out the coach doors seem to have either a deathwish or a unnatural dedication to punctuality.  There are two main lines – the Central Railway and the Western Railway - that run the entire length and breadth of the peninsula.  Sometimes it is confusing to keep the station stops on either railway straight, but people in the stations are generally pretty helpful when asked (Ed., like I should have done – read on below). 

Some newer trains are on the tracks this year, presumably replacing the rattier of the old-style cattle-cars that I rode in exlcusively last trip.  Though they are of nearly the same style and quality of the New York subway cars, they are no less crowded in the mornings.   I caught a pre-rush hour train yesterday morning but still found myself compressed into one of these new coaches on the way to work from Kanjurmarg Station to Chinchpokli Station.  Most of the riders disembarked at Dadar station, where the Western Railway connects, leaving me with about three stops to compose myself before walking a block and a half to office.  The people who ride these trains daily and manage to show up at work both ontime and looking kempt have my kudos.  Getting on a rush-hour train is like brawling in the narrow barspace at Gooski’s in Polish Hill; riding is easy enough if you don’t mind getting real familiar with your fellow man.  As I said in a post last trip, my involvement in the late-90s hardcore/metal scene and its associated sweaty, noisy, violent, packed shows prepared me in ways I never imagined for riding the Mumbai local trains. It’s hot and uncomfortable, but it’s not hell.  Everyone is reasonable and respectful to one another once on the train.  I’ve had pleasant conversations with the other riders and have met some interesting people.  Last trip, one guy standing in front of me even notified me that my phone was ringing.  He could feel it vibrating in my front pocket. 

Sometimes, Abhilash tells me there are fights.  I can’t imagine how this would work: One guy manages to free an arm to slug another rider, who in turn has nowhere to fall or even retreat.  It would have to be a short, one-sided altercation ending with a lot of pleading, or a prolonged and confined beatdown.  It reminds me of what my brother told me about a favorite activity of the Marines with whom he was stationed in Iraq in 2003: placing a scorpion and a camel spider inside of a small closed jar, then taking bets on which one would be sliced into pieces by the other first. 

The closest I came to an awkward encounter was coming home from work last week, when I was still insisting on the stupid idea of carrying my MacBook on the train in its Samsonsite laptop case (which is so impractical of a size for train travel here it’s laughable).  When I got the 15-pound bag down from the luggage rack, I lost control of it and it thudded corner-first into a small wiry guy’s chest.  He squinted at me in annoyance and made a low, sucking sound.  This cued the rest of the guys on the coach to turn their attention to the clumsy gora.  “Maf kijiye, maf kijiye, maf kijiye…” (forgive me) I said to him, trying to ingratiate myself in growing embarrassment as I moved carefully toward the coach exit.  He nodded at me and touched his chest and didn’t throw a punch, so I figured I got out of that scrape OK – no idea if basic Hindi actually saved my skin :)

(Suddenly, two days later…) 

I spoke too soon when I started this post early last week.  The train ride last Wednesday evening between Dadar and Andheri was a glimpse of hell, a screwup so royal it was nearly on the level of performance art.   I should clarify that it was entirely my own doing.  Any trouble that I get into in India is not India’s fault – it’s the result of my own stubborn self-reliance and persistent ignorance.  OK, end mea culpa. 

I was running late getting out of work, and I was to meet with Jeevan and a friend at a coffee shop in Juhu at around 8:00.  I figured that leaving at 6:30 and going straight away there would give me a little time buffer in case of misadventure, so I went to Chinchipokli station to catch a train to Dadar, where I would transfer to the Western Railway on to Andheri.  The three stops to Dadar were uneventful, and I bolted off the train and up the stairs to the ticket window to validate my railway coupons in the battered little stamp machines, so as to avoid being caught by the railway po-po if asked to produce my ticket.  These guys make sudden and unannounced visits to rail coaches; otherwise, I could not see why more people don’t simply steal rides on the train, what with all of the confusion.  When I got to the platform where the Andheri-bound trian was, I noticed that the LED sign above had a prefix of “BO”.  I thought nothing of this at the time.  It would prove to be a serious and nearly injurious liability. When the train rolled up to the platform where I stood amid a tense throng of work-weary men, it was already packed to the absolute gills.  There was the familiar but no less shocking sight of guys hanging out of the doorwells, some even jumping off as the cars whooshed past.  I’d ridden the rush hour train between Churchgate and Bandra before.  Very naively I thought I’d be able hack it this time as well.  The coach slowed to a stop and everyone began charging and shouting unintelligibly toward the door, from which nobody was making a real effort to detrain.  Something gripped me – call it what you will, boldness or folly.  I reached up through the crowd, who by this time were hooting, dozens of arms extended and gesturing frantically toward the door as the train was just about to take off again.  I grabbed the central partition bar in the doorway, hoisting myself up onto the threshold, where I was stymied by a mass of tired, dirty, pissed-off Mumbai commuters.

For a few seconds I hung there as the train rolled away slowly, then someone packed themselves in behind me, and another. And another, crushing me into the coach where I was surrounded on all sides by other riders.  Not one bit of personal space was left unviolated by someone else’s person.  I had the presence of mind to hoist my bag over my head, where it stayed for the duration of the trip.  I held it military-press style until my arms quivered and my teeth clenched with fatigue.  Despite the fact I checked my laptop in the office lockup again, the stupid thing was like carrying a loaded army duffle bag into a compact car.  I could feel glares from the other commuters as they eyed up this dumb firang who decided to “slum it” and take up valuable space.  “Mujhe Bharat pasand hai,” (“I like India!”) I mumbled sheepishly with a half smile to one young guy who was peering at me from under his sweaty bangs.  He just conitnued to stare.

“Where are you going?” said the wooly caterpillar-mustached guy next to me in thickly accented english.  By this time, due to circumstance of being slowly constricted by over 200 of my fellow men, I was getting increasingly defensive.  My own self-conciousness was coloring an uncomfortable but benign situation as something altogether sinister.  “Andheri,” I shot back nervously.  “This train is going to Borivali.  And you are on the wrong side of the car,” the guy said incredulously.  “It will be impossible for you to get down at Andheri.”  He motioned with an abbreviated nod of his head toward the other coach door, completely obscured with a crush of sweating bodies right out of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’  “Well, I’ll just get off at the next stop,” I said.  Funny thing at this point, as I realized that the conversation was not only between me and him, but between me and everyone in earshot.  “This is a fast train.  It won’t stop until Borivali, when you can get out on this side.  Why would you get on this train?  You should have gotten on the Andheri train.”  OK, OK.  So I get the point, I’m thinking.  I was not prepared for a kangaroo trial by my peers on top of feeling like a moron for not properly researching the schedules.  “You can jump out on this side, but you will have to cross the tracks,” he said, apparently totally serious about such a suicidal move.  “It is very dangerous.”  “Ahhhh, that’s not for me,” I said in disbelief, still trying to process the whole situation. But, they decided to help me out, as my mustached friend motioned for me to start toward the door once it was evident that I was not going to risk being sliced messily in two by a passing fast train.

The next 30 minutes was like being pushed through some kind of an alien birth canal – agonizing and exhausting.  Often I would move past someone one limb at a time, my chest cavity being squeezed with panic-inducing intensity by the rest of the mob I was pressing against.  My enitre body was covered in perspiration.  It soaked my clothing as if I had just ridden a water ride at Kennywood Park.  All that to move, literally, four feet.  When I reached the door, as the train began to slow, there where still three to four bodies separating me from the exit.  The fatigue stoked into excitement as everyone started hooting “chalo, chalo, chalo!” and I lunged along with the rest of the doorway crew toward the exit – where I collided with at least two guys who were getting on the train, knocking me right back where I started.  It was like a cartoon, and at this point I did begin to panic a little bit.  My right arm, caught in the straps of my bag, flailed behind me as my bag was being crowd-surfed by the doorway guys.  Then someone threw my bag off the train, snapping my arm forward along with it.  Then, someone threw me off the train.  I caromed off a few boarders before stumbling to a halt on the platform.  People were ogling me already, and I gave myself a comic, exaggerated preen before hoisting my bag on my shoulder and trudging through the station, dazed, to catch a rickshaw.  As I was working my way up the stairs, I caught myself making that annoying, repeated hissing noise that I’ve heard guys in the stations and on the street make (it sounds like “pss pss pss pss pss!”) at people coming my way.

After another 45 minutes of rickshaw travel, I made it to my meeting at Costa coffee in Juhu, a Starbucks-esque joint that mimicked the latter down to the logo design.  The first thing I did was excuse myself to change out of my sodden kurta into the shirt I’d brought along.  Thankfully, the place was air-condtioned but my new shirt was still nearly soaked by the time I finished cleaning up.  I had some ‘splainin’ to do about my tardiness – the ‘dumb gora out of Pittsburgh’ excuse is wearing thin.  After a coffee freezer (mercifully, not made with Nescafe – this, the coffee of choice in India, is far too weak to defend itself) I was nearly back to normal.

So dig this big crux: You don’t ride the rush hour suburban train in Bombay because you want to; you ride it because you have to.