ery minute detail of my analysis and observations; so here’s a short account of my findings.If any of you feel this is quite lengthy, please don’t forget to appreciate the fact that I took the pain to go to such acute details in letting the truth peek through to all of you my dear ones. [In other and actual words, nobody comes back to me complaining this one was too lengthy a read, as I am sure you will enjoy getting truths unveiled and maybe your own similar personal memories unleashed..!! ;-)]
Introduction:
Introduction:
Like a giant earthworm charging towards you with an undesirably great speed, the Mumbai locals are a scaring view for the first time. The scene is chaotic; the profligacy is right in front of you; hundreds and thousands of humans are jumping all around the doors of the train even while it is still in gentle motion, fighting for the survival of their daily lives and bu
siness routine. A few travellers get down when the train just arrives on the platform, jumping out for an early exit to ensure they are not strung up in the sea of anxious waiting people, all ready to aboard the train amongst all odds.
siness routine. A few travellers get down when the train just arrives on the platform, jumping out for an early exit to ensure they are not strung up in the sea of anxious waiting people, all ready to aboard the train amongst all odds.And do you ask for compassion? If you are allowed to travel with yourself still alive, that’s all the sympathy you deserve in a Mumbai local journey. A city with a beaming large number of millions using the train on numerous occasions in a single day, Mumbai locals is aptly their lifeline.
The London tubes demand the densest populous - they are the most ancient tube lines in the world. Very few people know the fact that the London tubes network is originally a combination of various independent train services. It’s astounding because of that, considering on how they have now managed
binding these complex services together to give a single huge network carrying the oldest tube line in the world!
The London tubes demand the densest populous - they are the most ancient tube lines in the world. Very few people know the fact that the London tubes network is originally a combination of various independent train services. It’s astounding because of that, considering on how they have now managed
binding these complex services together to give a single huge network carrying the oldest tube line in the world! 275 stations on 12 different lines, 250 miles to cover out of which 93 miles in deep tunnels, 408 escalators and 112 lifts, make it an amazing maze inside the city. However the truth remains that more than half of the London underground lines are actually over the ground.
Trains and description :
The London tubes are quite smaller and compact as compared to the Mumbai locals. An irony here remains that the average height of a traveller in India is much lesser than that of a London traveller! Which is really amazing because while I know a 6.3-5” guy is very normal in UK, they always have to bend over to actually enter/exit from a London tube. Disgusting how they missed the measurements, isn’t it?
The seats in a London tube are not arranged in single rows, they are stuck at the very end of the compartments running parallel all the way through, of course barring the doors and the ends of the compartment. This gives plenty of places for people to stand near the door and within the compartments.
However the Indian trains have the more traditional design of horizontal column-like seats of 3 seaters, on both sides of the entrance door, with alternate columns facing to each other. This gives plenty of seating room but less standing room. Of course the trains are bigger in size and therefore can hold plentiful more than a London tube.
Another major difference in the London tubes is that they do not have specific compartments reserved for first class holders or any separate compartments for the ladies. With more number of compartments than an average Mumbai local, and flanged with glass compartments stuck to each other, the London tubes surely do look like tubes moving around on wheels. Again taking care of the travellers is a bit easy in London, if one of their lines is not in service; they have replacement bus services working from that station. This is surely very good for new travellers.
Rules of the Lines:
The seats in a London tube are not arranged in single rows, they are stuck at the very end of the compartments running parallel all the way through, of course barring the doors and the ends of the compartment. This gives plenty of places for people to stand near the door and within the compartments.
However the Indian trains have the more traditional design of horizontal column-like seats of 3 seaters, on both sides of the entrance door, with alternate columns facing to each other. This gives plenty of seating room but less standing room. Of course the trains are bigger in size and therefore can hold plentiful more than a London tube.
Another major difference in the London tubes is that they do not have specific compartments reserved for first class holders or any separate compartments for the ladies. With more number of compartments than an average Mumbai local, and flanged with glass compartments stuck to each other, the London tubes surely do look like tubes moving around on wheels. Again taking care of the travellers is a bit easy in London, if one of their lines is not in service; they have replacement bus services working from that station. This is surely very good for new travellers.
Rules of the Lines:
Every line that is as old as both of these lines, (around 150 years old now!) have seen relentless years of service, growth and changes. And because they are so much a part of the daily lives of majority of their population; the people tend to follow some practices to carry on the daily travel without much hassles.
The Mumbai trains have their own rules and regulations; of course these rules are not laid out by general public as ‘rules written on paper’. These rules are like ‘thumb-rules’ that evolve, scale and follow themselves based on the primordial experiences of the general public.
The following are the few rules that I can highlight and remember as very important ones :
1) In the direction of the train, the first half of the entrance to any compartment is always for “train latchers.” I know it’s an odd term to use, but that’s what you feel like they look when seen from a distance. A few people latched on to the doors, swaying and moving along with the train as it moves around, half of their body outside the train, and somehow balancing themselves with unimaginable talent and risk.
The Mumbai trains have their own rules and regulations; of course these rules are not laid out by general public as ‘rules written on paper’. These rules are like ‘thumb-rules’ that evolve, scale and follow themselves based on the primordial experiences of the general public.
The following are the few rules that I can highlight and remember as very important ones :
1) In the direction of the train, the first half of the entrance to any compartment is always for “train latchers.” I know it’s an odd term to use, but that’s what you feel like they look when seen from a distance. A few people latched on to the doors, swaying and moving along with the train as it moves around, half of their body outside the train, and somehow balancing themselves with unimaginable talent and risk.
2) The second half of the compartment (which now makes it only a narrow tunnel) is for ‘exit first and entry later’ kind of a general rule. You are given a few hundred milliseconds to exit if you can in any station. After which the door is normally piled over 
with hundreds of people waiting to ‘barge in through the tunnel’. Another “platform-travel facility” for those who want to avoid the over-bridge is to jump from one train to another train already standing on the other side, and move across into the platforms!
3) People can, and should be accommodated in every nook and corner of the train, windows and the roof-top included. Specifically speaking, people can also hang out on the windows or on the
roof tops if their wish be to have adventure. We don’t believe in taking holidays, hanging a back-pack and preparing for a hitch-hiking ride to some gullible place in the woods like the London people.
These daily train adventure rides like the “window-crawling” are much fancier than those ill-making missions.
with hundreds of people waiting to ‘barge in through the tunnel’. Another “platform-travel facility” for those who want to avoid the over-bridge is to jump from one train to another train already standing on the other side, and move across into the platforms!3) People can, and should be accommodated in every nook and corner of the train, windows and the roof-top included. Specifically speaking, people can also hang out on the windows or on the
roof tops if their wish be to have adventure. We don’t believe in taking holidays, hanging a back-pack and preparing for a hitch-hiking ride to some gullible place in the woods like the London people.These daily train adventure rides like the “window-crawling” are much fancier than those ill-making missions.
4) Everybody who enters the train must keep the belongings over their head at all times to ensure it does not occupy any standing space. With a population of a multi-million, thronging in at the train doors and into the compartments, a little occupied space by unwanted luggage means a loss of standing space for 5-6 passengers. This is not at all fruitful and you are punished for trying any such atrocities. If you want to carry luggage, either learn to juggle it on your head for a major part of your journey, or just forget the luggage - others can take good care of it for all of its life, if any left.
5) Always know which side of the doors your station will arrive at. If you don’t, then forget travelling or just beg God that it is the one at which you are standing where the station arrives. However, veteran travellers of Mumbai can be allowed to alight on the rail-tracks on the opposite side anyways.
6) In a three-seat arrangement, at least or not less than 4 people need to be accommodated. The size and the shapes of the participants don’t matter; even 4 WWF players need to follow this rule. It’s always an advantage, but if you are “smart” enough to not want such an advantage, travel in the First class and end up getting your back screwed up.
7) At any time in your travel between stations, if you feel unbearably itchy and scratchy while standing in an odd crouched position; if your hands are lost and in an unreachable part of the world, you can always take help of the person nearby you. They can help you anytime, this exactly being the reasons of us being taught a national language at schools in Mumbai.
8) If a lady/girl has even by mistake tried to venture in the men compartment, scare her off immediately, especially in the rush hours. They cause havoc and occupy too many seats, apparently causing discomfort to many travellers. However, if the lady/girl has a boy friend, the fiendish part of the journey needs to begin. “Abey girl friend ko taxi main ghumaao yaa fir dusri train main le jaao” is the thought of most wise-men of Mumbai.
8) If a lady/girl has even by mistake tried to venture in the men compartment, scare her off immediately, especially in the rush hours. They cause havoc and occupy too many seats, apparently causing discomfort to many travellers. However, if the lady/girl has a boy friend, the fiendish part of the journey needs to begin. “Abey girl friend ko taxi main ghumaao yaa fir dusri train main le jaao” is the thought of most wise-men of Mumbai.
9) You need to plan lots of things before travel, right from tickets, compartments, directions, types of train to unplanned things like the nature’s call. Most of the stations here don’t have any working models of toilets. So better be vary and prepared for sudden discomforting aversions; you can’t fight with them and the travel adventure at the same time.
10) The ladies compartments will be the most scuffling and noisy at all times. Do not put boards of ‘Noise pollution’ in ladies compartment; this act will be too detestable. You are not going to avoid this pollution using ear-plugs too, so don’t try any fancy stuff.
11) Even if you are in the most hurried time of your journey, be very cautious while crossing the platform where the ladies compartment is slated to arrive. If you happen to touch even a hair of any waiting girl/lady accidentally, on a given bad day the results can be devastatingly disastrous. You might not be able to recognize yourself by the time you reach home and look into the mirror.
12) Never ever enter the ladies compartment even by mistake. If you did, I am sure you would anyways not travel in Mumbai local for at least a month. You know it takes so much time for such a kind of fear, or the impression of such an unfortunate incident (
of you being thrashed to pulp) to finally evaporate from the memories.13) If you feel stomach pain or gastric when you are at the platform, have a cup of the Rupee four, Masala Soda or Nimbu Paani tonic. Not only will your gastric pain disappear but also any unwanted reserves of stomach viruses will be thrown out in the next day morning business. Most interestingly, anything sold in any part of the world is available in the Mumbai stations counters at half the price, unlike in the London stops, where it is the vice versa!
14) Luggage compartments in the train are not for luggages. They are just a special name given to some “foul smelling old compartments” which however should be used by the regular travellers anyways. All you need to do is get used to some really pongee smell that makes your nose start running in depression!
15) You need lots of practise and great skills to be able to travel seated in a Mumbai train, in those places from which the train begin its journey. If you want to get out of the train fast, or enter a train easily, make sure that you are well behind the guy who has the uncanny combination of wit, experience, muscle-power and speed. You need lots of virtues to be privileged to travel in a Mumbai train. The travel using such esteemed methods needs preparation, from being ready to gallop onto the train at the correct time, to shout at the top of your voice to unsettle an obstructer, and to ward-off other assailants in the bid to get into the train first.
16) Never try to use English in your language of communication in the travel. You will end up being caught up in a fight or being fooled entirely or even worse harassed by the veteran travellers of the train. The travellers here are strict in believing that you need to leave your education and your communication ways back at your office or home. While in Mumbai trains, use only the Mumbai language, ‘samjha kya re ghochu’?
17) If you are a regular train traveller and have to travel in office hours, get used to the idea of ‘music online’ into your ears. Though this music is neither classical, hip-hop, jazz, rock nor unfortunately anything like devotional. The music is completely out of the world. The Mumbai locals are filled with great and most talented ‘Bhajan Band of Boys (men)’!
The London tube travels don’t have much of rules to be followed; rules are normally made by wiser lot, and there is not much of such kind of genre here. Always remember to mark out your journey in the http://www.tfl.gov.uk/ website and carry the tube map whenever you are travelling. If you don’t follow these rules, you may end up travelling to and fro in 2-3 tube lines, to reach a destination which was just few blocks of walking distance away!
17) If you are a regular train traveller and have to travel in office hours, get used to the idea of ‘music online’ into your ears. Though this music is neither classical, hip-hop, jazz, rock nor unfortunately anything like devotional. The music is completely out of the world. The Mumbai locals are filled with great and most talented ‘Bhajan Band of Boys (men)’!
The London tube travels don’t have much of rules to be followed; rules are normally made by wiser lot, and there is not much of such kind of genre here. Always remember to mark out your journey in the http://www.tfl.gov.uk/ website and carry the tube map whenever you are travelling. If you don’t follow these rules, you may end up travelling to and fro in 2-3 tube lines, to reach a destination which was just few blocks of walking distance away!
There is an obvious and in some way subtle decision to make while travelling in the tube trains. The biggest issue remains is of determining the direction in which you intend to travel. After groping through the tiny tube map and finding out your destination, you need to remember whether you are bound towards East/West or North/South from your present destination. This may be an easy part initially, but the regular travellers get so much bogged down by the re-occurrence of the query, that they forget their sense of direction completely.
Always keep your Oyster cards safe in your pocket, pickpockets here are dumb enough to choose the later between your costly Rolex watch and the Oyster card.
Due to the strategic seating arrangements, you end up seated such that you are facing some other cartoon on the other side of your compartment. You need to therefore learn the acts of immediately :Holding laughter on horrendous dressing disasters ranging from funny hairdos, disastrous tattoos and the clip hangers showered all over the faces.
1) Hold your smile to indolent dragsters that have no dumb idea of what they plan to do the next moment.
2) Hold your surprised disgust on the dishevelled makeup of a girl who is too busy talking to her two boyfriends (one black and one white) or sending text to them on the phone, one after another.
3) Being aloof of, well, I don’t need to mention these fourth categories of people, all of us know that they are embarrassing and shameless in their revealing manners of clothing above anything else.
4) If you happen to offer the seat to somebody aged, make sure you don’t determine the age of people based on the colour of their hair. Firstly because Indians take all people with white hairs as elderly men/women, secondly 40% of the London travellers have their hairs dyed to give natural colours. If you do so, I imagine you would pass 95% of your tube travels standing. 
5) Have a strong sense of smell in the London tubes, with personal experience I can say that most of the travellers always have much more than a drink or two before they start their journey. Another tip is that if some traveller is very friendly and talkative, 99% of the time he/she is drunk beyond senses.
6) You need to know the EAST and WEST and the NORTH and the SOUTH while travelling the London trains. Sometimes you start doubting what you have learned right from your childhood by the way the trains are moving but apparently the tube maps are your direction holders not the direction in which the trains are moving.
6) You need to know the EAST and WEST and the NORTH and the SOUTH while travelling the London trains. Sometimes you start doubting what you have learned right from your childhood by the way the trains are moving but apparently the tube maps are your direction holders not the direction in which the trains are moving.
7) While moving on the escalators always keep right and always hold yourself tight. Eventually if you don’t, you will surely end up in a mess where creeps shout at you in indolent but rapid foreign pieces of mystic fables.
8) No luggage columns over the head on the London trains. If you have luggage more than what you can handle, hire a car or taxi; even if it means you go broke by the charges of a taxi travel. That’s what credit cards and credit crunches are made for in London!
The Ticketing Systems:
Just from the recent past, Mumbai train passes can be bought online, this must have surely reduced the hush-hush for season pass holders who can afford to go on the internet. However, the queue for the on-the-spot day travel tickets is still tormenting. Coupons are seldom used because generously most of the CVM (Coupon Validating Machines) are duly out of order. The people with ‘whiter and shinier wisdom tooth’ normally avoid taking tickets altogether. Especially in the rush hours, we can be always sure that no ticket checker can be on the prowl for his own mercy’s sake. Thus free journey are always for the taking in the Mumbai trains.
However in the London tube travels, this is one difficulty. The entry and the exit are barred by those ticket checking machines that automatically validate the tickets of monthly cards (called as Oyster cards). Thus if in India you waste time in buying tickets, in London you waste time ‘swiping in and out’ of stations while you have the tickets! On some ‘officially rare’ occasions, which by the way is factually recurring, the ticket validating systems fail to work across all stations, and the testimonials to such a disaster is the daily newspaper (which BTW is freely distributed in London trains and buses) that carry headlines similar to ‘London tube occurs 4.5 million pounds of loss in a single day due to the failure of the central ticket validating systems’. There you see, developed countries are so systematic, they have even their losses are counted and encountered by their automatic machines!
Surprisingly many Mumbai travellers, particularly some ‘Einstein-like fundamentally genius guys’; redefine travelling costs in their own unique balance sheet calculations. Let’s say a quarterly pass costs you 400 bucks from station A to station B, they would normally prefer travelling ticket-less for those 3 months. If they are caught in the most unlikely incident of that happening, they should normally be paying 250 Rs fine according to standard railway fine charts. But these travellers pay everything that they have in their pocket, which normally turns out to be a figure close to a whopping 40-50 Rs, and get out of sight. Apparently this money goes directly into the ticket checkers pocket, and the transaction of course remains off the records. So instead of paying the 400 bucks of travel passes, the investment only goes to 50-100 bucks! What a saving and you also don’t have to take care of your passes from pick-pocketers too!
And now consider the complex scenario that you are again caught ahead in your ticketless travel adventure, on the same day, same place, you can give the name of the previous ticket checker whom you had just please minutes before. The new one would immediately let you proceed without obstruction. One of my friends was once caught by a Mr. Tambe, at Borivli station. While in fix, and not wanting to part the 40-50 bucks, he tried to be over-smart and lied that he was just caught by another officer before and gave the name of some lame officer, a Mr. Gavkar, who had caught him travelling ticketless several days back. To this Tambe’s response was, “Khota boltos, Gavkar saaheb Kurla madhe laagle aahet aata! Lai Shaanpanaa dakhavlis tu, Aata tar pavti hun pan jast paishe kaadh; naahi tar ghalvun deil aandhar kothadit.” (English translation : “You liar! Mr. Gavkar is now patrolling in Kurla station. Trying to act oversmart, eh, now you will have to pay more than even the slated fine rate, or else you will end up in the dungeons”). Well when bad luck beholds you, there is no stopping.
Finally the most challenging part is to actually get those day tickets if you are not a regular traveller. After standing in the counters for more than an eternity, when your turn finally arrives to take the ticket, it’s mostly lunch time, or the ticket dispensing crookster gets a call and he closes the counters for silly reasons. There are no sign posts or due time for the ticket windows. Sometimes you are reeling behind at the 47th position in the lines, but if you are quick eyed and agile, you can end up suddenly being the first few in the very next counter which has just opened and missed the attention of other waiting queue members. That’s how you feel in the Mumbai travel - talent, timing, preparation and finally luck needed in each journey day.
In the London tubes, if you are trying to buy tickets from the queues, the situation is very complicated. With a glass obstruction of thickness comparable to the double-glazed windows of my apartment, our sound is barely heard by the sophisticatedly equipped moron on the other side. However the responses from him are heightened by the microphone which is made available to each personnel. All in all, after waiting in queue for a long time, you finally end up using sign languages to explain him the nature of ticket you need!
Station Announcements :
“Platform No. 2 pe aane valli local aaj radd kar di gayi hai. Yaatriyo ko hone valli asuvidha ke liye hame khed hai” This dialog is almost a regular appetite to a Mumbaikars ears, of course, these platform numbers change from time to time. As soon as such announcements are made, we encounter a barge of activities similar to what an outside would assimilate as a ‘state of co-ordinated panic’. People with their office bags handled in the most master-crafted ease, start running from one station to another based on their priorities and the amount of clearance available in the platforms.
Recession or no recession, summer/winter or Rain days, whatever be the season, or what the hell maybe the reason, the announcers of the Mumbai stations are dangerously mal-nutritioned, or what can be imagined as making announcements as if with a gun placed on the forehead. No human ear can decipher the code or even match the frequency, resilience, power, patience and the vocabulary of those announcements. But if you travel for 15 days in the Mumbai trains, your ears are trained to naturally firewall any queries to the brain that try to analyze/understand these announcements. We therefore rely on crowd movements and the seventh sense, if I am allowed to say. If people are running from o
ne platform to another, you know that the normal scheduled local was 
cancelled as always.
In London trains however, these announcements are made with carefully picked voice programs, and repeated at regular just intervals. ‘Please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge’, these kinds of announcements are necessary for some of those hilariously psychic EU travellers. And I can’t blame that we don’t have such wonderful announcements made in our arena. Naah! They wouldn’t make any sense, when we actually don’t have enough gaps left in the platform and the train compartments anyways!
Public Display Of Affection:
London trains are used by a worldly multi-ethnic society, and truly speaking the most geeky and most exorbitantly mixed breed of ‘nuts’ from all across the globe (this includes me of course). Some of these are so busy or so intimidately alone, that they accomplish the triumph over their loneliness by making public display of affection to their counterpart. These can range from different situations, positions and sometimes, unfortunately with different disgusting voices as well. The sad part is, you feel completely uncomfortable if you are caught on the very next seat!
A funny situation occurs when that couple takes the seat at the ends of the compartment near to the door, where the seats end to an arrangement of ‘rods and glass’. Once I was travelling in one of these tubes, and a Mr A and Mrs B were engrossed in an intimate kiss. Of course, if you had turned your gaze accidentally to such scenes, the mind has by now learned a new reflex action to turn your gaze to some other direction instantly. But incidentally something unfortunate happened and all the meagre 15-20 people, sorry geeks, in the compartment turned their gaze to the couple.
Apparently the girl was evoked by some demons within her, and she was holding the guys head in her gracious stance, but it must have slipped through when their individual systems were in the peak of their processor CPU % usage and BANG! The guy hit hard on the side-rod and the intermingled-processes turned instantly to ghost processes (sorry I am a certified UNIX Admin, so can’t help with my language)! I assume the next step in such situations is not easy to act on, but hey this is London! Nothing could stop Mr A and Mrs B that moment, maybe not even their individual wife and husband waiting back home. I remember one of the London trip books that I had read once mentioned, ‘Surprise is always an element on our London tours.’ I wondered, did it actually mean about anything like one of these tube-shows?
Well in terms of Mumbai trains, this is slightly like chalk and cheese. Though the elements of romance are all close at hand! The difference is that these feelings are shared only on mobile phones.
Firstly because fortunately, most of us are still forced to respect to our heritage social manners, secondly the ladies compartments are separate as I mentioned before already. Airtel, BSNL, Hutch and of course not to forget Reliance Mobile; all have bonded many love-birds together with their free and minimal charges package schemes which are only on papers. Whether they are travelling in the same train but in separate compartments, or one of them is back home or in office calling from their landlines; the show is always ON. Though there are some ‘wireless communication’ and ‘GSM and CDMA signal’ difficulties that they have to overcome. Let me also make one thing clear to all of you, do not be under the wrong impression that 80% of Mumbai crowd does not understand what GSM and CDMA stand for.
GSM - H = Ghar Sa Maahol, Hamesha
CDMA = Chalte ya Daudte Milo Apnose
This is the real essence of mobile technology in India. God! I learned all rubbish in my Engineering!
Sometimes due to these discontinuities and voice raising responses, funny situations arise. One day I was travelling in a ‘jam-packed’ Borivli-Churchgate fast train, standing near the door at the compartment edge. I observed that a pre-occupied Marathi guy, young and I assume “newly engaged, hyperactive scarce piece of living structure”, was sitting next to a bulky, filthy dressed, crooked monstrous guy with a mean dumb expression on his face. The Marathi guy was busy in his phone call with his love, and I am sure intimate talks were going on with her.
I can confirm this from such a long distance not because I could hear anything. No, not possible! These discussions happen with a peculiar silence and co-ordinated moments of the lips, astoundingly lower pitch voice with "phase/amplitude/frequency modulation and encoding" in such a way that it only reaches the recipient on the other side. I actually conspired it to be so guessing by the reactions of the Marathi guy; the twist that goes on the smile and the abrupt eyes rising on occasions as if enjoying the joy of the revelation of a previous adventurous meeting. What confirmed my doubts completely was the occasional disgusting frown of the tough guy besides who apparently was over-hearing parts of the conversation.
Suddenly in the wake of realization, the Marathi guy remembered that the mobile’s signal strength is going to be weak between Goregaon and Jogeshwari while he needs to get down at Andheri himself. So it was time to end the call and say ‘1 4 3’ before the signal shrinks to zero. In the course of panic, he spoke the words in a rapid and high pitch voice but unfortunately also turned his gaze to his neighbour, at the same time, maybe due to a habit, I assume. Amidst the total silence that broke, a few people around started looking at this ‘gods own special piece’ as he made his second hurried error and blurted to the monstrous guy, “Sorry I didn’t tell anything to you, it was my Girl Friend”.
These things are so common I suppose to regular travellers, that it was only me who burst laughing in the whole compartment. Finally it was my turn to be embarrassed as I turned over to the other side and interjected to myself, “Wasn’t that supposed to be funny?” Well, all in a days travel!
Fighting over the Phone:
The tube travel in most of the central London are flagged off by signal cut-offs in the underground areas where signal cannot reach. So any conversations of fighting are normally done on ‘TEXT’ (this is the term used in UK for SMS, which is popular in India). A grim observation I have made here is that while the Indian travellers are very good in writing SMS in their own language (like an example is Hindi written in English syllables), but the UK travellers tend to use the English language for anything from harsh words, or the 4 letter abusive words or be anything else.
‘Break-up fights’ in London trips are very small and precise. The two parties would have anyways met in one of the standard listed ‘Break-up friendly coffee houses of UK’ (anybody wants to know I have a list of it myself) which is conveniently nearby to their offices. All that the TEXT would contain will be contents similar to ‘I am glad we have agreed to seek parting, hope you have good times ahead. It was great to know you and we’ll always be friends.’ The ‘we’ll always be friends’ part is optional as you know that needs decent background of knowing each other for a long time, which not everybody in London tend to do in a relation!
Fighting over the phone in Mumbai is noisy, tragic, occasionally coupled with silent periods and doubled with immediate curses and despicable promises to get even in the most meagre way to the opponent on the other side of the line. No promises of physical assaults, however, happen on phone. It’s an understanding in Mumbai which we grow up with, “If you challenge to fight physically, either do it in person, or we know you are just bluffing.” So such a promise is made in a more political manner. A normal way of making such statements would be, “Kahi aaju-baaju dikhna mat mere, bolke rakhta hun pehle se.” (though the actual meaning of it would be like ‘mere baap main nahi lunga pangaa/nahi karungaa galti, mere piche mat padiyo ab’). The Mumbai language has many 2, 3, 4 and 5 letter words of abuse in different languages, with different tones, dialects, voices and sometimes great innovations that add really a lot of spice to the ‘fight on the phone’.
Real fights for Unreal Reasons:
While London tubes fall back in these performances, Mumbai trains have a rich heritage and loads of reasons behind them anyways for the real fights.
London fights are normally done in the form of serious storm of taunts and sudden burst of ethical policies readout from the books of the educated counterparts. The variety of these can vary based on the vocabulary and the patience of the speaker and the recipient. In some observations the time for such relentless speeches are directly proportional to the age of the speaker. But in all cases, the result is only a growing amount of sleep, fatigue, agony in your already drained out body. I feel such mouth-bursts are even more dangerous than the Mumbai fights.
However packed they maybe, no Mumbai train gives service throughout a day without having seen at least a dozen fights in some of its compartments through the length of the day. In some occasions, individual fights are going on in more than one compartment all in the same time and in the same space of journey. Those times are rightfully termed as the ‘rush hours’ of a Mumbaikars life-time. Fights can be for multitude of reasons ranging from ‘seemingly broke a train rule’ or ‘imaginatively heard murmuring provocative language’ or ‘not being allowed to aboard train and so causing push-in’. These are normally just the sparkles and means to spit out the frustrations lingering on the harassed, which is transferred to the innocent, unknown and unlucky assailant. The best part here is that we follow some rules in such fight. Apparently whatever the reason, if a fight has eventually broken between 2 people in a train, everybody else has the right to poke in and hit any of the two fighters irrespective of the understanding or belief on who was at fault. I have myself lost count of my participations in the number of such occasions. Of course I am normally very neutral in my views, so my actions are always repeated on both the parties equally. And when you take part in such activities, you are given the honour to tell a tale of the account to your friends later, of course sheepishly adding a line in the end that says ‘Fir maine bhi haath saaf kar hi liya’.
Platform Posters, Escalators and Advertisements:
Advertisements in the London tubes are rather sophisticated, though scarce numbers of these are actually used in the central London tubes. These actually include electronically moving Graphic Images in a rolling format, sequenced one after another. They are enclosed in a glass-protected frame, with the edges flagged with dark black strips all along. I once encountered with a very funny transition of two advertisements which put my wits into question. Recently while travelling through the ‘Westminister’ tube station, I saw a rolling advertisement that alternatively displayed advertisements on 'Quantum of Solace', the 007 movie; and advertisement for avoiding AIDS and spreading awareness. Well contrasting posters they were must say, as most of you would agree, both educate on completely different lines you see!
The London escalators are so long, that they are the best place for advertisements. The stairs revolve up and down slowly, and all those tagged along on them literally try to ignore their own restlessness by staring on the advertisements. The best advertisement was one I had seen in Victoria station, which had a motion picture kind of advertisement, where all the pictures from the top to the bottom of the escalators when watched together, would make you understand what the advertisement wanted to sell on!
The Mumbai platforms however boast a host of advertisements and information-rich posters. “Walk-through all the gestures describing human sentinels in a single poster of some Ekta Kapoor production soap-serials” or “the latest Z-grade movie running in an unknown corner of a busy city”. And to add the spice to the story, some message boards are also flagged with small leaflets of “Lost n Found candidates whose photos are so faded they resemble close to every soul you see around” or “Earn extra income from home” hanging indented on the advertisement boards.
I remember a time when I was travelling from the Jogeshwari station to some destination, and found a queer advertisement of a soap-serial, with a scene where the person with the main role is being attacked by an assailant by an unknown instrument. Let me correct you before you start wondering what is unknown. The advertisement was torn and so the suspense was ON. All the other posters in the station were even more damaged if not less than that. The build-up of the suspense was only broken when I finally ventured to the Mumbai streets and found the same poster, this time thankfully complete, on one of the side-roads!
Train Banners and Displays:
From recent periods, the Mumbai trains now have announcements made inside the compartments itself for the stations. Of course they are now another source of torture to the swarm of stuffed living beings in the compartments. But if you ever get a chance to see the Banners and Displays of Mumbai trains, you will be astounded by the vastness of the talent that we entertain. Right from the ones with standard defamed products of Mumbai, to the great service providers in Medical histories, all have their say in each and every Mumbai train.
The ‘Shah Piles advertisement’, the ‘After tenth direct degree admission to S.M.Lal private college’, ‘Babba Bengaali ka Chamatkar’ and so many posters of varied dimensions, colour language and for various amounts of target audience are available in display. The star attraction ones are those which mention only half-spilled information.
Like the ones which say, ‘Call on :
9812345678’ And amongst all these star-studded advertisements, with great amount of difficulty and struggling to keep its identity known, come out in display the standard government warnings on, “not smoking cigarettes, and not carrying explosive materials, and no ticketless travelling, and so on”. Finally if all of this does not meet the daily talent dose of a few, we have a few scribblers and on-the-spot poster makers who use their pens, brushes and pencils to make art and announcements as important as ‘Lily hates Raja’ and ‘I love Rambha – signed Satish (with some apparent spelling mistakes all over)’.
The London tubes, however, have systematic control on the train banners and displays. All over the train you find the tube map and the train specific journey stops that it is going to encounter. Nobody can ever complete a journey without having pondered on these for at least sometime in a day. There are a few places however, where they do allow the advertisements, but most of them are boring and too difficult to understand. As you already know the sense of humour of these people is also too hard to get!
Display Screens – Tidiness and getting directions:
London tubes wins hands-out in the facilities availed on display screens. Firstly because they display much more than the present train arriving and estimated arrival time, secondly they also do mention if they are not in service! The tidiness of the platforms is also never a question. A few can of beers can surely be found either rolling on playfully on the platform, or finally settling into the train tracks.
You can find BSE written in the LED displays, of the Mumbai platforms for a 3:58 local, apparently due to reverse engineering techniques. In fact some of the LEDS normally don’t work. It’s a bit of abnormal if all are working properly. I have seen people narrowing their vision and adjusting their lenses to assure they are seeing the real world correctly, if they find all the LEDS working fine. A fast train will arrive when the display is still showing a slow trains scheduled to arrive which had already arrived earlier. Such disasters are so common in Mumbai trains.
But who will polish your shoes in the time of crisis in the London tubes? Who will provide you grubs of food sachets or fruits to eat if you are hungry suddenly? Who will provide you with magazines and ballpoint pens at silly cheap prices in your train journey?
London tubes have been so magnificently arranged that you can reach to any place based on your direction sense, tube map and the signs that each platform has at the most appropriate places. While in Mumbai platforms, we have so many people to ask to, and so many ways to get to, that we don’t feel bothered about those directions. However, it is always the risk of a prank from somebody to a newcomer or a new traveller.
Missing Elements:
The logic of reverse-business-hour traffic is all in display in the Mumbai local life. With most of the offices flagged in Central Mumbai or the southern Mumbai, the travel from all other zones to these areas is completely frenzied and unencumbered for most of the journey time.
If you want to see hawkers who sell things for cheap, it’s the Mumbai trains where you would find them. Small children, who don’t like begging, try to sell stuff for cheap to those who are ready to buy. Newspapers, water bottles, fruits, small toffees and hordes of books are all sold out in Mumbai locals. However they never do their business in the rush-hours, that’s when the logic of reverse-business-hour flow comes handy to them!
Another of the missing elements in the London tubes; are the beggars and the singers, those who may torment you in some of your journey times with their silly pranks.
While this is how it stands for the Mumbai locals, the London tubes have their own fascinating world of singers who like to make their living and drinking based on music they have learned. While the music they sing is too good to hear, who has the time to ponder on it?
The final word:
We might find the differences in the two trains appalling, but the most important thing that makes both of them unique and important is that they are the lifelines of the two cities. Nobody can imagine work and a normal life without these. They are the root of the city life and the real consequent of many normal livelihoods. And to add to it, the fact that no terror threats can stop the journey on these life-lines, just reasserts the known fact that truth always triumphs over the false.
The Ticketing Systems:
Just from the recent past, Mumbai train passes can be bought online, this must have surely reduced the hush-hush for season pass holders who can afford to go on the internet. However, the queue for the on-the-spot day travel tickets is still tormenting. Coupons are seldom used because generously most of the CVM (Coupon Validating Machines) are duly out of order. The people with ‘whiter and shinier wisdom tooth’ normally avoid taking tickets altogether. Especially in the rush hours, we can be always sure that no ticket checker can be on the prowl for his own mercy’s sake. Thus free journey are always for the taking in the Mumbai trains.
However in the London tube travels, this is one difficulty. The entry and the exit are barred by those ticket checking machines that automatically validate the tickets of monthly cards (called as Oyster cards). Thus if in India you waste time in buying tickets, in London you waste time ‘swiping in and out’ of stations while you have the tickets! On some ‘officially rare’ occasions, which by the way is factually recurring, the ticket validating systems fail to work across all stations, and the testimonials to such a disaster is the daily newspaper (which BTW is freely distributed in London trains and buses) that carry headlines similar to ‘London tube occurs 4.5 million pounds of loss in a single day due to the failure of the central ticket validating systems’. There you see, developed countries are so systematic, they have even their losses are counted and encountered by their automatic machines!
Surprisingly many Mumbai travellers, particularly some ‘Einstein-like fundamentally genius guys’; redefine travelling costs in their own unique balance sheet calculations. Let’s say a quarterly pass costs you 400 bucks from station A to station B, they would normally prefer travelling ticket-less for those 3 months. If they are caught in the most unlikely incident of that happening, they should normally be paying 250 Rs fine according to standard railway fine charts. But these travellers pay everything that they have in their pocket, which normally turns out to be a figure close to a whopping 40-50 Rs, and get out of sight. Apparently this money goes directly into the ticket checkers pocket, and the transaction of course remains off the records. So instead of paying the 400 bucks of travel passes, the investment only goes to 50-100 bucks! What a saving and you also don’t have to take care of your passes from pick-pocketers too!And now consider the complex scenario that you are again caught ahead in your ticketless travel adventure, on the same day, same place, you can give the name of the previous ticket checker whom you had just please minutes before. The new one would immediately let you proceed without obstruction. One of my friends was once caught by a Mr. Tambe, at Borivli station. While in fix, and not wanting to part the 40-50 bucks, he tried to be over-smart and lied that he was just caught by another officer before and gave the name of some lame officer, a Mr. Gavkar, who had caught him travelling ticketless several days back. To this Tambe’s response was, “Khota boltos, Gavkar saaheb Kurla madhe laagle aahet aata! Lai Shaanpanaa dakhavlis tu, Aata tar pavti hun pan jast paishe kaadh; naahi tar ghalvun deil aandhar kothadit.” (English translation : “You liar! Mr. Gavkar is now patrolling in Kurla station. Trying to act oversmart, eh, now you will have to pay more than even the slated fine rate, or else you will end up in the dungeons”). Well when bad luck beholds you, there is no stopping.
Finally the most challenging part is to actually get those day tickets if you are not a regular traveller. After standing in the counters for more than an eternity, when your turn finally arrives to take the ticket, it’s mostly lunch time, or the ticket dispensing crookster gets a call and he closes the counters for silly reasons. There are no sign posts or due time for the ticket windows. Sometimes you are reeling behind at the 47th position in the lines, but if you are quick eyed and agile, you can end up suddenly being the first few in the very next counter which has just opened and missed the attention of other waiting queue members. That’s how you feel in the Mumbai travel - talent, timing, preparation and finally luck needed in each journey day.
In the London tubes, if you are trying to buy tickets from the queues, the situation is very complicated. With a glass obstruction of thickness comparable to the double-glazed windows of my apartment, our sound is barely heard by the sophisticatedly equipped moron on the other side. However the responses from him are heightened by the microphone which is made available to each personnel. All in all, after waiting in queue for a long time, you finally end up using sign languages to explain him the nature of ticket you need!
Station Announcements :
“Platform No. 2 pe aane valli local aaj radd kar di gayi hai. Yaatriyo ko hone valli asuvidha ke liye hame khed hai” This dialog is almost a regular appetite to a Mumbaikars ears, of course, these platform numbers change from time to time. As soon as such announcements are made, we encounter a barge of activities similar to what an outside would assimilate as a ‘state of co-ordinated panic’. People with their office bags handled in the most master-crafted ease, start running from one station to another based on their priorities and the amount of clearance available in the platforms.
Recession or no recession, summer/winter or Rain days, whatever be the season, or what the hell maybe the reason, the announcers of the Mumbai stations are dangerously mal-nutritioned, or what can be imagined as making announcements as if with a gun placed on the forehead. No human ear can decipher the code or even match the frequency, resilience, power, patience and the vocabulary of those announcements. But if you travel for 15 days in the Mumbai trains, your ears are trained to naturally firewall any queries to the brain that try to analyze/understand these announcements. We therefore rely on crowd movements and the seventh sense, if I am allowed to say. If people are running from o
ne platform to another, you know that the normal scheduled local was 
cancelled as always.In London trains however, these announcements are made with carefully picked voice programs, and repeated at regular just intervals. ‘Please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge’, these kinds of announcements are necessary for some of those hilariously psychic EU travellers. And I can’t blame that we don’t have such wonderful announcements made in our arena. Naah! They wouldn’t make any sense, when we actually don’t have enough gaps left in the platform and the train compartments anyways!
Public Display Of Affection:
London trains are used by a worldly multi-ethnic society, and truly speaking the most geeky and most exorbitantly mixed breed of ‘nuts’ from all across the globe (this includes me of course). Some of these are so busy or so intimidately alone, that they accomplish the triumph over their loneliness by making public display of affection to their counterpart. These can range from different situations, positions and sometimes, unfortunately with different disgusting voices as well. The sad part is, you feel completely uncomfortable if you are caught on the very next seat!
A funny situation occurs when that couple takes the seat at the ends of the compartment near to the door, where the seats end to an arrangement of ‘rods and glass’. Once I was travelling in one of these tubes, and a Mr A and Mrs B were engrossed in an intimate kiss. Of course, if you had turned your gaze accidentally to such scenes, the mind has by now learned a new reflex action to turn your gaze to some other direction instantly. But incidentally something unfortunate happened and all the meagre 15-20 people, sorry geeks, in the compartment turned their gaze to the couple.
Apparently the girl was evoked by some demons within her, and she was holding the guys head in her gracious stance, but it must have slipped through when their individual systems were in the peak of their processor CPU % usage and BANG! The guy hit hard on the side-rod and the intermingled-processes turned instantly to ghost processes (sorry I am a certified UNIX Admin, so can’t help with my language)! I assume the next step in such situations is not easy to act on, but hey this is London! Nothing could stop Mr A and Mrs B that moment, maybe not even their individual wife and husband waiting back home. I remember one of the London trip books that I had read once mentioned, ‘Surprise is always an element on our London tours.’ I wondered, did it actually mean about anything like one of these tube-shows?
Well in terms of Mumbai trains, this is slightly like chalk and cheese. Though the elements of romance are all close at hand! The difference is that these feelings are shared only on mobile phones.
Firstly because fortunately, most of us are still forced to respect to our heritage social manners, secondly the ladies compartments are separate as I mentioned before already. Airtel, BSNL, Hutch and of course not to forget Reliance Mobile; all have bonded many love-birds together with their free and minimal charges package schemes which are only on papers. Whether they are travelling in the same train but in separate compartments, or one of them is back home or in office calling from their landlines; the show is always ON. Though there are some ‘wireless communication’ and ‘GSM and CDMA signal’ difficulties that they have to overcome. Let me also make one thing clear to all of you, do not be under the wrong impression that 80% of Mumbai crowd does not understand what GSM and CDMA stand for.GSM - H = Ghar Sa Maahol, Hamesha
CDMA = Chalte ya Daudte Milo Apnose
This is the real essence of mobile technology in India. God! I learned all rubbish in my Engineering!
Sometimes due to these discontinuities and voice raising responses, funny situations arise. One day I was travelling in a ‘jam-packed’ Borivli-Churchgate fast train, standing near the door at the compartment edge. I observed that a pre-occupied Marathi guy, young and I assume “newly engaged, hyperactive scarce piece of living structure”, was sitting next to a bulky, filthy dressed, crooked monstrous guy with a mean dumb expression on his face. The Marathi guy was busy in his phone call with his love, and I am sure intimate talks were going on with her.
I can confirm this from such a long distance not because I could hear anything. No, not possible! These discussions happen with a peculiar silence and co-ordinated moments of the lips, astoundingly lower pitch voice with "phase/amplitude/frequency modulation and encoding" in such a way that it only reaches the recipient on the other side. I actually conspired it to be so guessing by the reactions of the Marathi guy; the twist that goes on the smile and the abrupt eyes rising on occasions as if enjoying the joy of the revelation of a previous adventurous meeting. What confirmed my doubts completely was the occasional disgusting frown of the tough guy besides who apparently was over-hearing parts of the conversation.
Suddenly in the wake of realization, the Marathi guy remembered that the mobile’s signal strength is going to be weak between Goregaon and Jogeshwari while he needs to get down at Andheri himself. So it was time to end the call and say ‘1 4 3’ before the signal shrinks to zero. In the course of panic, he spoke the words in a rapid and high pitch voice but unfortunately also turned his gaze to his neighbour, at the same time, maybe due to a habit, I assume. Amidst the total silence that broke, a few people around started looking at this ‘gods own special piece’ as he made his second hurried error and blurted to the monstrous guy, “Sorry I didn’t tell anything to you, it was my Girl Friend”.
These things are so common I suppose to regular travellers, that it was only me who burst laughing in the whole compartment. Finally it was my turn to be embarrassed as I turned over to the other side and interjected to myself, “Wasn’t that supposed to be funny?” Well, all in a days travel!
Fighting over the Phone:
The tube travel in most of the central London are flagged off by signal cut-offs in the underground areas where signal cannot reach. So any conversations of fighting are normally done on ‘TEXT’ (this is the term used in UK for SMS, which is popular in India). A grim observation I have made here is that while the Indian travellers are very good in writing SMS in their own language (like an example is Hindi written in English syllables), but the UK travellers tend to use the English language for anything from harsh words, or the 4 letter abusive words or be anything else.
‘Break-up fights’ in London trips are very small and precise. The two parties would have anyways met in one of the standard listed ‘Break-up friendly coffee houses of UK’ (anybody wants to know I have a list of it myself) which is conveniently nearby to their offices. All that the TEXT would contain will be contents similar to ‘I am glad we have agreed to seek parting, hope you have good times ahead. It was great to know you and we’ll always be friends.’ The ‘we’ll always be friends’ part is optional as you know that needs decent background of knowing each other for a long time, which not everybody in London tend to do in a relation!
Fighting over the phone in Mumbai is noisy, tragic, occasionally coupled with silent periods and doubled with immediate curses and despicable promises to get even in the most meagre way to the opponent on the other side of the line. No promises of physical assaults, however, happen on phone. It’s an understanding in Mumbai which we grow up with, “If you challenge to fight physically, either do it in person, or we know you are just bluffing.” So such a promise is made in a more political manner. A normal way of making such statements would be, “Kahi aaju-baaju dikhna mat mere, bolke rakhta hun pehle se.” (though the actual meaning of it would be like ‘mere baap main nahi lunga pangaa/nahi karungaa galti, mere piche mat padiyo ab’). The Mumbai language has many 2, 3, 4 and 5 letter words of abuse in different languages, with different tones, dialects, voices and sometimes great innovations that add really a lot of spice to the ‘fight on the phone’.
Real fights for Unreal Reasons:
While London tubes fall back in these performances, Mumbai trains have a rich heritage and loads of reasons behind them anyways for the real fights.
London fights are normally done in the form of serious storm of taunts and sudden burst of ethical policies readout from the books of the educated counterparts. The variety of these can vary based on the vocabulary and the patience of the speaker and the recipient. In some observations the time for such relentless speeches are directly proportional to the age of the speaker. But in all cases, the result is only a growing amount of sleep, fatigue, agony in your already drained out body. I feel such mouth-bursts are even more dangerous than the Mumbai fights.
However packed they maybe, no Mumbai train gives service throughout a day without having seen at least a dozen fights in some of its compartments through the length of the day. In some occasions, individual fights are going on in more than one compartment all in the same time and in the same space of journey. Those times are rightfully termed as the ‘rush hours’ of a Mumbaikars life-time. Fights can be for multitude of reasons ranging from ‘seemingly broke a train rule’ or ‘imaginatively heard murmuring provocative language’ or ‘not being allowed to aboard train and so causing push-in’. These are normally just the sparkles and means to spit out the frustrations lingering on the harassed, which is transferred to the innocent, unknown and unlucky assailant. The best part here is that we follow some rules in such fight. Apparently whatever the reason, if a fight has eventually broken between 2 people in a train, everybody else has the right to poke in and hit any of the two fighters irrespective of the understanding or belief on who was at fault. I have myself lost count of my participations in the number of such occasions. Of course I am normally very neutral in my views, so my actions are always repeated on both the parties equally. And when you take part in such activities, you are given the honour to tell a tale of the account to your friends later, of course sheepishly adding a line in the end that says ‘Fir maine bhi haath saaf kar hi liya’.
Platform Posters, Escalators and Advertisements:
Advertisements in the London tubes are rather sophisticated, though scarce numbers of these are actually used in the central London tubes. These actually include electronically moving Graphic Images in a rolling format, sequenced one after another. They are enclosed in a glass-protected frame, with the edges flagged with dark black strips all along. I once encountered with a very funny transition of two advertisements which put my wits into question. Recently while travelling through the ‘Westminister’ tube station, I saw a rolling advertisement that alternatively displayed advertisements on 'Quantum of Solace', the 007 movie; and advertisement for avoiding AIDS and spreading awareness. Well contrasting posters they were must say, as most of you would agree, both educate on completely different lines you see!
The London escalators are so long, that they are the best place for advertisements. The stairs revolve up and down slowly, and all those tagged along on them literally try to ignore their own restlessness by staring on the advertisements. The best advertisement was one I had seen in Victoria station, which had a motion picture kind of advertisement, where all the pictures from the top to the bottom of the escalators when watched together, would make you understand what the advertisement wanted to sell on!
The Mumbai platforms however boast a host of advertisements and information-rich posters. “Walk-through all the gestures describing human sentinels in a single poster of some Ekta Kapoor production soap-serials” or “the latest Z-grade movie running in an unknown corner of a busy city”. And to add the spice to the story, some message boards are also flagged with small leaflets of “Lost n Found candidates whose photos are so faded they resemble close to every soul you see around” or “Earn extra income from home” hanging indented on the advertisement boards.
I remember a time when I was travelling from the Jogeshwari station to some destination, and found a queer advertisement of a soap-serial, with a scene where the person with the main role is being attacked by an assailant by an unknown instrument. Let me correct you before you start wondering what is unknown. The advertisement was torn and so the suspense was ON. All the other posters in the station were even more damaged if not less than that. The build-up of the suspense was only broken when I finally ventured to the Mumbai streets and found the same poster, this time thankfully complete, on one of the side-roads!
Train Banners and Displays:
From recent periods, the Mumbai trains now have announcements made inside the compartments itself for the stations. Of course they are now another source of torture to the swarm of stuffed living beings in the compartments. But if you ever get a chance to see the Banners and Displays of Mumbai trains, you will be astounded by the vastness of the talent that we entertain. Right from the ones with standard defamed products of Mumbai, to the great service providers in Medical histories, all have their say in each and every Mumbai train.
The ‘Shah Piles advertisement’, the ‘After tenth direct degree admission to S.M.Lal private college’, ‘Babba Bengaali ka Chamatkar’ and so many posters of varied dimensions, colour language and for various amounts of target audience are available in display. The star attraction ones are those which mention only half-spilled information.
Like the ones which say, ‘Call on :9812345678’ And amongst all these star-studded advertisements, with great amount of difficulty and struggling to keep its identity known, come out in display the standard government warnings on, “not smoking cigarettes, and not carrying explosive materials, and no ticketless travelling, and so on”. Finally if all of this does not meet the daily talent dose of a few, we have a few scribblers and on-the-spot poster makers who use their pens, brushes and pencils to make art and announcements as important as ‘Lily hates Raja’ and ‘I love Rambha – signed Satish (with some apparent spelling mistakes all over)’.
The London tubes, however, have systematic control on the train banners and displays. All over the train you find the tube map and the train specific journey stops that it is going to encounter. Nobody can ever complete a journey without having pondered on these for at least sometime in a day. There are a few places however, where they do allow the advertisements, but most of them are boring and too difficult to understand. As you already know the sense of humour of these people is also too hard to get!
Display Screens – Tidiness and getting directions:
London tubes wins hands-out in the facilities availed on display screens. Firstly because they display much more than the present train arriving and estimated arrival time, secondly they also do mention if they are not in service! The tidiness of the platforms is also never a question. A few can of beers can surely be found either rolling on playfully on the platform, or finally settling into the train tracks.
You can find BSE written in the LED displays, of the Mumbai platforms for a 3:58 local, apparently due to reverse engineering techniques. In fact some of the LEDS normally don’t work. It’s a bit of abnormal if all are working properly. I have seen people narrowing their vision and adjusting their lenses to assure they are seeing the real world correctly, if they find all the LEDS working fine. A fast train will arrive when the display is still showing a slow trains scheduled to arrive which had already arrived earlier. Such disasters are so common in Mumbai trains.
But who will polish your shoes in the time of crisis in the London tubes? Who will provide you grubs of food sachets or fruits to eat if you are hungry suddenly? Who will provide you with magazines and ballpoint pens at silly cheap prices in your train journey?
London tubes have been so magnificently arranged that you can reach to any place based on your direction sense, tube map and the signs that each platform has at the most appropriate places. While in Mumbai platforms, we have so many people to ask to, and so many ways to get to, that we don’t feel bothered about those directions. However, it is always the risk of a prank from somebody to a newcomer or a new traveller.
Missing Elements:
The logic of reverse-business-hour traffic is all in display in the Mumbai local life. With most of the offices flagged in Central Mumbai or the southern Mumbai, the travel from all other zones to these areas is completely frenzied and unencumbered for most of the journey time.
If you want to see hawkers who sell things for cheap, it’s the Mumbai trains where you would find them. Small children, who don’t like begging, try to sell stuff for cheap to those who are ready to buy. Newspapers, water bottles, fruits, small toffees and hordes of books are all sold out in Mumbai locals. However they never do their business in the rush-hours, that’s when the logic of reverse-business-hour flow comes handy to them!
Another of the missing elements in the London tubes; are the beggars and the singers, those who may torment you in some of your journey times with their silly pranks.
While this is how it stands for the Mumbai locals, the London tubes have their own fascinating world of singers who like to make their living and drinking based on music they have learned. While the music they sing is too good to hear, who has the time to ponder on it?
The final word:
We might find the differences in the two trains appalling, but the most important thing that makes both of them unique and important is that they are the lifelines of the two cities. Nobody can imagine work and a normal life without these. They are the root of the city life and the real consequent of many normal livelihoods. And to add to it, the fact that no terror threats can stop the journey on these life-lines, just reasserts the known fact that truth always triumphs over the false.
- Ideas and fantasies are just false experiences of a world we desire!
- Chirag Khara
