Tuesday 9 June 2009

The Mechanised Serpent

Before I actually get to the topic, here are a few figures which I feel are very relevant.

Global Population - 6,777,060,283

Population of India - 1,164,324,557

Population of Mumbai - 00000013,922,125

Daily commuters by Local Trains in Mumbai – 6,940,000


I think that most of you would have understood the topic by now and the reason behind the figures. In case you didn’t, this post is about the local trains in Bombay and the figures are just to put things in perspective.


For a long time I have felt that the design of trains was probably inspired by the serpentine reptiles that India is synonymous with. For all those who have read comics or seen cartoons in which they try to depict India, you would invariably see snake charmers. The deranged White Man assumes India to be a land of Snakes and Tigers, widespread disease and poverty. It finds it hard to accept the growth and progress of our nation, but I think I am getting sidetracked here.


Now, after having called the train as a mechanised serpent, I started to think of which particular snake I consider a train to be, and I came up with two slithering critters which I thought made an apt fit.


The first would have to be the Boa Constrictor, an infamous South American Snake that is known to squeeze its prey in order to suffocate it or break its neck, and then swallow it whole, allowing its acids and other fluids to slowly digest it. This is probably the best description that I could think of for a Local Train, other than the dying part that is. Once you enter a crowded train, you test the degree of compressibility and flexibility of the human body, and are also exposed to a host of odours and fluids. It is a fairly hot and humid place, not unlike what I imagine the belly of a snake to be.


The other one that I could think of was a Rattlesnake, which is primarily because of the rattling sound that you get to hear while travelling on these trains, or when a train is approaching the station.


While searching for the population statistics, I discovered a fact which I wasn’t aware of. Apparently, Mumbai is the world’s most populated city, which has now crossed Shanghai in terms of number of people that reside here. I am not talking about population density, and I do not know which the most densely populated city is. Feel free to enlighten me if you know the answer. One think that I do know is that when I started travelling on Local Trains in Bombay, I realised that population is definitely a major problem in our country. There are an insanely high number of people that reside in this city, and the number is continually increasing. I finally understand what the phrase ‘a sea of people’ means. In case you are unable to picture this, I suggest that you visit a major station in the city during rush hour.


I read in an article that during rush hours, a train carries upto 5000 passengers at a time, which is more than 3 times its maximum permitted capacity. I don’t think a train is ever actually considered to be full, because no matter how cramped it seems, somehow there is always room for more passengers. It is a mystery as to how so many people manage to enter and remain in the train. I guess humans love challenges and keep trying to push the limits to try and see how many people can ride at any given moment. I must commend the manufacturers of the locomotives for the sturdy and robust construction, as well as the passengers who are always willing to allow people to enter, no matter how crowded the coach may be.


I honestly believe that a train forms a microcosmic ecosystem and is a sort of a miniature human habitat. If you observe the activities of people, you will find almost everyone indulged in some or the other activity. There is near optimum utilisation of time and I notice people having perfected a method of folding their newspaper in such a way as to permit reading it in the cramped surroundings. Groups of people can be seen discussing every possible topic under the sun. People on the telephone can be found conducting business deals, making appointments, quarrelling with loved ones, or patching things up. Commuters are found reading course books, novels or magazines, and a large percentage can be observed with earphones plugged in as they oscillate with the train listening to their favourite tunes.


I wonder how an agoraphobic or claustrophobic person would survive in one of these coaches in case he made the grave mistake of getting on. Also, in case a passenger carrying a contagious disease decides to board a train, I think he would be considered a living biological weapon and could possibly trigger of a small scale epidemic. No wonder terrorists consider trains to be an optimum target to trigger pandemonium.


The stations are another wondrous place where you get waves after waves of zombified commuters. It is intriguing to see the number of people who keep entering and exiting the station during peak hours. There is a constant and never ending stream of passengers who seem to appear in waves filling up the platforms. Normally, there are trains that arrive at a platform every 3 minutes, and somehow I always feel that the number of passengers waiting on the platform could easily fill a train to capacity, but they form only a fraction of the population on the serpent. You normally get a fresh trainload of passengers on the platform within the short span of 3 minutes. When leaving the platform, along with the hundreds of people who just disembarked, you realise the zombie feeling as you have to walk in a slow pace, along with the rest of the crowd, especially when you reach the staircase.


Another similarity between trains and snakes that I could think of would probably be a bit of a stretch, but I could consider trains to be deceptive and sort of camouflaged. Whenever you see a train approaching a station, you can never tell how empty or crowded it would be, because even an absolutely vacant train would almost certainly have people partially hanging outside and crowding the doorways. It is definitely a site to see a train approaching a station as you see multicoloured protrusions at regular intervals where the doors would be, on an otherwise drab coloured locomotive. What compels passengers to hang on the edge of these fairly rapidly moving mechanised beasts with just their fingertips holding on to a thin strip of metal is something that is beyond my comprehension. The doorway is definitely the most coveted spot on the train though, which will definitely remain an unexplained phenomenon for me.


One thing that I cannot deny however is the importance of this transportation system to this sprawling metropolis. These mechanised serpents are by far the quickest, cheapest and most efficient means of transit from one location to the other and are very rightly called the lifeline of the city. The efficiency of this system is also quite astounding, and despite all the criticism and drawbacks, there is no denying the fact that this system works and is an absolute necessity. In the last couple of months, when I was forced to travel in local trains during peak hours, amongst zounds of commuters, I feel that I have gotten used to these serpentine locomotives, and although I appreciate the importance of this system, I honestly doubt if I will ever actually begin to like it.


I decided to leave out incidents and experiences to keep the post a little short, and to avoid using graphical descriptions which might not have appealed to everyone.