Local train...

     I don’t get a chance to travel much by the local trains in Pune. Inspite of the rush in locals, I have always enjoyed my short journeys thoroughly. The last time I traveled by a local had been when I had to go to the University of Pune to submit the application for my degree certificate. I have never traveled without the company of my friends in a local train and I have always been thankful that I have never had to travel alone. The part wherein I have to enter the local makes me go dumb. The crowd or I would rather say the sea of people who want to enter the compartment makes me feel that there should be locals coming every 5 minutes. Since my friends are used to getting in and out of it despite the rush, I have always been able to board and exit at the correct stations. Because they are the ones who push me out of the bogie and pull me in at the perfect time.

     

     So I was talking about my latest “yatra” in a local train. We had booked return tickets in the morning itself while boarding the local sensing that we may not have much of time to get into the long queue at some other station. As expected we reached Shivajinagar station just minutes before the local was about to arrive. I suppose each local has two ladies compartments- one somewhere at the centre and the other at the end of the train. Wherever it is, there is a small board that hangs at the platform indicating the position of the ladies compartment..;)

    As soon as the train arrived at the platform, I felt like all the ladies in the world wanted to board the same compartment which I had been looking forward to get into. Somehow I got pushed into the compartment by an external thrust and I reached the other end of the door. By that time, even my friends reached near me. I wouldn’t mind standing at the door for a long time. I love looking outside the moving train. The train started moving slowly , then increased its pace within seconds. Many of the ladies got a seat while many had to stand holding onto the handles fixed onto the railings above their heads. I clutched the handle of the door firmly though I was trying to seem cool by letting go of the handle for a few seconds. As the train approached the next station in five minutes, another mini wave entered our compartment. A lady got into our bogie with her wailing son. The little fellow was crying because he had been pushed into the bogie the same way I used to be pushed. The only difference between both of us that time was that I was ready for the push but he was not!! His mother tried to calm him down but the poor boy was crying as loudly as possible!! Finally the lady bought him some chips from a lady hawker in the compartment and then he was calmly enjoying his packet of chips.

    There is hardly any space for people to move around in the bogie and a lady squatted down right in the middle making it all the more difficult and irritating for people who wished to get down. There began another verbal war which consisted of a few abuses too. Both were not in a position to give up. The two ladies quarreled for some time while the rest of the people including me enjoyed watching the scene.

   After around 6-7 stations, we had to get down at Akurdi. My friends and me tried to move from one door to the other and finally succeeded. The train halted for around 10-15 seconds and my heels touched the platform somehow. The train began to move forward and we started moving towards the exit of the station when suddenly a lady started screaming and calling out some name which we didn’t hear. As soon as we hear something like this, our thoughts start racing and atleast my thoughts go towards the extremes. Many people started shouting together and  finally made the local halt once more. I thought that the lady’s child had slipped and fallen in between the platform and the train but thankfully nothing of that sort had happened. The lady had exited from the compartment but the child could not get down on time and since the train had already started moving, the woman was running behind the people made the local stop and finally the kid was reunited with its mother.

   My bike had been parked at the station and the 7 minute drive I have to take from the station to reach my home was filled with thoughts and the way that I had to narrate the whole thing to my parents.