You wanna ride wid me!!

You feel his breath on the back of your neck, his sweaty body rubs on yours. You smell his body, the strong smell of garlic hits you like a bullet in the head. They are all around you, hogging as they unintentionally, unknowingly hug you. The lack of oxygen makes it all the more better. The loud noises they make just adds to the effect of this intense situation.
Sounds like an intense love making scene going for an Oscar breakthrough, but not!! The Mumbai local train it is.

Everyday, you share your walking ground with a million or more commuters on these trains. This city has moderate temperature which becomes hot due to the pollution, smoke and yes, the Infra Red rays from the other human bodies. Especially when they are in your close proximity intruding your personal space unintentionally, unknowingly. When two sources, which dissipate heat are put close together, the heat is transferred by the virtue of conduction. In this particular case, when your metabolism is high; it can turn you into a furnace, which profusely bleeds out sweat.

Everyday, you stand on the platform with a million other people trying to 'catch' a train. Catch being the operative word, as it is a difficult task. The corporate executive who eats his food exclusively with a fork and a knife and makes sure he doesn't leave a single morsel of food on his plate; turns into a monster when he reaches the platform. A student who is an obedient disciple and a somber child becomes a POW escaping a death camp.

Recipe for Stuffed Tomatoes:
Take a tomato, cut the top and clean the inside. Finely chop some onions, carrots, green chillies; saute the these vegetables till the onions are golden brown, let this mixture rest. Mash some boiled potatoes, add salt, chili powder & oregano to taste, mix with saute vegetables. Stuff the entire mixture inside the tomato. Garnish with fresh mint. Take two of these, lay them horizontally so that there bottoms touch. Now put 14 of these pairs in a line. Blame it on the population and the urgency, every and any train looks similar to the picture explained above.

Everyday, you wrestle with a million other commuters on the platform to have a 'foot hold' on the train. The fight doesn't stop there but becomes tougher once you are inside. Caught up between two giant waves of flowing homo sapiens, you do get drifted a little; a lot. Moving through these 'rough waters' you might see yourself hanging onto a post & out of the train. With a constant 'push-pull' you do squeeze yourself back inside, like last ounce of stuffing going inside a turkey. Hand and forearm muscles are constantly active holding onto the support clips, more like bats hanging upside down on a tree but no wings, if you slip; its a kill!!

Everyday, you have guy sticking his weirdly aromatic head into your nose and sometimes even rubbing it on your clothes, unknowingly- unintentionally, for once you forget all your problems & wonder how clean the guy is who standing next to you and what disease he might have. Like it or not 20% of the people are like pink flamingos, doing the one leg stance, 10% of the people are like Michelangelo's Adam, hanging with there arm in one direction and their body in the other, trying to avoid sights & smells. The rest 70% just occupy there space in the universe, and in the train, as biscuits closely packed inside a packet. For all the sights, smells and sounds, I keep telling myself, "We are just men and men is what we are". You finish the journey of travelling inside a hot case and here comes a big wave again: for the weak and first timers be ready to lose your spectacles, pens & any other loosely hanging appendages. The scene looks like a wild stampede and it is. You normally see one or two people toppling over, while no one assists them up but jumps them. After the quick tackles and dodges you reach ground zero again, to start walking, yet again, with a million other people.

This is the 2nd Class train commute! This is Bombay! This is not for the weak!