Virar Fast..!
It was a Virar Fast, my cousin from Delhi and I took thirty years ago. “Bob you remember our trip to Virar?” Zarina asked as she visited Mumbai a few days back.
We were young and having an afternoon free decided for a lark to take the Virar Fast local and then return home to Byculla. It was an empty train, as most trains to Virar were those days, and as it sped, we were the only ones in the compartment. We stood at the door savoring the greenery, enthralled by rhythmic clatter of railway tracks and enjoying gentle breeze that came in gusts and lifted our already buoyant spirits.
The stations came and went; at Mira Road we hardly stopped, as no one got in or out. “I wonder why they’d have a station here?” she said, and we’d laughed as the train sped on over the Vasai Creek on an old bridge towards Naigaon and then Nalasopara. At Vasai a few people got in, locals who looked curiously and then worriedly when we didn’t get off at Virar. “We’re taking same train back,” we chortled and did just that, back to Bombay Central and home.
And in my mind’s eye I imagine we do same trip again:
“The train look the same,” laughs my cousin as local speeds into station and then she gasps as from its very innards thousands upon thousands of shirts, pants, skirts and churidars with bodies attached are spat out onto platform and in same swinging motion thousands clamber in again.
We stand on platform horrified. Another comes and same thing happens, and then another by which time we position ourselves hesitantly and get rolled in with hordes of pants, shirts and churidars.
“I’m dying!” whispers my cousin peering at me through armpits, sleeves and elbows.
“Stand on your toes,” whispers a commuter, “there’s air on top.”
“I’m already standing on my toes,” she screams silently.
“Those are mine!” says thin man looking with pleading eyes at her.
The stations come and go, with long torturous halts between as slower trains go by and I hear her again, “At Borivili they’ll all get off!”
At Borivili nobody gets off. Another million get in and thin man who’s toes my cousin stands on now looks ready to crumble as cousin gets ready to faint. “Bob,” she whispers, “I’m really dying!” “Hold on,” I tell her, “Have courage,” and then slump as ten elbows jab my mouth, stomach, neck and shoulders.
One station before Virar for just a second we breathe as train empties and then another million get in, “You’re traveling just one station?” I ask surprised. “No we’re going back to Churchgate,” laughs a burly fellow as elbow enters my eye and I collapse in pain again.
“How are you?” I asked my cousin on the phone this morning after she’d returned to Delhi.
“I’m standing outside Lalu’s office!” she screamed, “Am going to pelt him with rotten eggs! Let him look after Mumbai commuters, instead of clowning in Parliament, jesting about nuclear deals..!”
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