The Lifeline of Mumbai

When you travel daily during rush hour in a Mumbai Local you face a trade-off. This is because even if you board at the starting station there is a fair possibility that you might not get a seat. Therefore whenever you enter the train you have two options: 1) Stand in between the seats and wait for someone to get up and be ready to grab the seat. But there are chances that no one around you might get up and you may have to complete the long journey standing with very little oxygen around you. 2) You can stand at the edge of the entrance so that you can get ample amount of fresh air. But here also there are chances that you might be pushed inside when crowd rushes in or thrown out when it moves out. If you are thrown out then it’s not a problem as you may still get a chance to stand on edge of the entrance (assuming you don’t get hurt while you are thrown out). But if you are pushed inside then it’s worse then the first option. Firstly you have definitely lost the opportunity to sit. Secondly you might even get crushed to death if you are up against the wall. And it is much more suffocating as infinite number of people stand in that region.
Delhi Metro may seem to be much swankier than Mumbai Local but the amount of service the latter is doing to Mumbai is, according to me, much more than done by former to Delhi. It daily carries half of Mumbai (this number is equal to 60 lakhs) on time. Well it is due to its special characteristics. It’s non-AC and open. If number of people traveling in a local at rush hours were to travel in Metro, its AC-system would explode and/or people would die of suffocation. From outside it may seem that the volume of a Local is finite but from inside it appears that it has infinite capacity. On every station you might feel that the compartment is full and it won’t be able to accommodate any more but on next station even if greater number of people board the train, they manage to fit in somewhere. Don’t know where. This applies to the city as well. On an average 57 families come to live in Mumbai everyday. Yet this city always has a billion opportunities to offer to everyone. It has a market for anything and everything under the sun at any time of the day. Mumbai never sleeps.
Coming back to the Local. There are a few people who just can’t compromise on fresh air. So, if they don’t manage to stand on the entrance, they cling to window from outside (where the hell they keep their feet I couldn’t figure out) or stand on the window (yes it’s possible) or sit on the roof top (I am sure some current must be induced in their body also as they are so near to the 25000 V line just above their head). Although I have never traveled in a Delhi Metro but I am sure that it does not provide such facilities. Like everything else this facility has it cons as well. On an average around 17 people die everyday in Local train accidents.
I have learnt the traveling etiquettes very well as now I travel for 82 km daily. I have become an expert in sleeping in a Local. One day I went to one station beyond the station I am supposed to get down. The only thing I am yet to learn is sleeping while standing.
Some other facts about Mumbai Local: It’s considered as one of most efficiently managed systems in the world. During rush hour there is a gap of just 800 m and 1200 m between two slow and two fast Locals respectively. If there is a serious breakdown it’s declared a public holiday in Mumbai. (a city where there is no off even after a day of bomb blast!).