Life in Lagos vs Mumbai:-  the title should be actually life In Mumbai local J

 

The good things first, in Lagos loads of time in your hands to do whatever you want, the bad part most of the time you don’t know what to do. So I end up chatting on bbm, making calls to India, facebooking, plus some reading, music, movies. I have tried new things like bridge which I enjoy, but I am not taking it to the next level, jogging which I loved, but am lazy and not stretching myself, learning kickboxing- suffering the same fate as jogging, cooking- well I do enjoy cooking now, but still don’t get excited about making new dishes etc.  And the never ending partying life of Lagos, there is just no end to lunches and dinner ;))

The most cherished part of my long vacation in lagos is my morning tea with Ritesh, which I could never ever imagine in Mumbai, half hour of tea and conversation with a beautiful backdrop; and the evening sunset view from my balcony, my very own beautiful peaceful moments. Just now saw an awesome view of ten fishing boats in the ocean, what symmetry, could not even have imagined this kind of idyllic world exists back in Mumbai! The awesome Lagos community- Lebanese, Dutch, British, Americans, French, Indians, Scandinavians, Indonesians, Singaporeans, and my friend list is such an awesome mix of citizens across the world now. And all such wonderful people!!

In Mumbai, even for breathing air you have to fight it out. Flashback life 11 years back, the fight to get in the direct local train from Kandivali to Churchgate in Mumbai right in the morning was something I could never win, so always ended up taking the return train from Kandivali to Church gate. Now, for people who have never travelled in a Mumbai local, understanding the jargon “return train” may not be easy. Its,  basically, going first in the opposite direction from Kandivali to Borivali; and then the same train becomes a train from Borivali to Church gate. This means you have to add at least half hour more to your journey but in return, you are able to get the best window seat and you travel comfortably to Church gate without fighting it out. My commute time from my home to my office used to be two hours. People inside these trains are literally packed like sardines. The art of reading a newspaper in the train, the way its folded, so that you can read without the paper touching the co passenger whether sitting or standing next to you, the rush for taking the seat, right from the window seat with the best possibility of fresh air, to the fourth seat- which is more like you are barely able to land your bum on the seat, is intense. I have watched many a people fighting fiercely for the claimed seat. But life in a Mumbai local is not just about fighting for the fourth seat, there is a lot more to it, there are several groups of people who take the same train every day , so the kind of friendships that get forged on these trains is delightful. The women just run into the train, rather rush into the train, and after finding a seat, take the deepest breath possible, and probably for the first time in the morning, relax their tired muscles and settle themselves for the next one hour or so. For most of these working women, the morning starts with cooking breakfast, making lunch boxes for self, husband and kid and then doing the mad rush to get to the station so that they can take their very own train with their own friends. This morning fight ends only after they land themselves on their coveted seat. A lot of these women never have the time to eat their breakfast at home so they carry their small breakfast box as well. Once you become a proud winner of a seat, people who are standing, start asking where you would be getting off, Andheri, Bandra, Dadar, Mumbai Central and the seats again get auctioned or claimed by the passengers standing. When I used to do the train travel back then, I used to think, oh my God!! How am I going to manage this, my whole life? After the settling and claiming of seats comes the time to take a morning nap, with necks lolling and dropping almost 90% of the seated passengers go off to sleep till the time comes to either get down, or to give their seat to a passenger who is standing for long. The generosity or the custom of giving your seat to the person standing for long whether at Dadar or Mumbai Central, is something unique. By the way, it’s not just the people sitting who manage to catch the shut eye. Even people who have not been lucky enough to get the seat, doze off. Once it happened to me. I was standing near the door, with crisp fresh breeze blowing against my face, did not know when I dozed off and realized only when I was rudely pulled in by a fellow passenger. It seems when I dozed off, my knee caved in and I was about to lose my balance. Don’t know what would have happened if I was not pulled back by the lady, but after that day I never stood near the door in the morning for enjoying the fresh air against my face.  As the train nears churchgate, it slowly gets emptied out, people have been getting off at stations and the train at churchgate has only about 50 percent of people left than what it originally started with. In the last leg of the journey, you would see women taking out their compacts and doing their hair, lipstick and even putting on perfumes etc. Oh yes, the Mumbai woman is very prepared for everything.  The whole morning tiredness is gone and they are fresh and relaxed and ready to start the office day. In the last one hour they have eaten, napped, joked, listened to songs, shared their joys and sorrows with their best friends, read the morning newspaper, and sometimes even shopped clothes, books accessories etc etc. and now after they put on their war paint, they just hop off the train and start running again to catch the earliest bus, or the shared cab to go to their office building!!

The Mumbai Local train experience is one of a kind…

The return journey back is quite different from the morning journey and to do justice to that I would have to write a new blog !