Mumbaied

It’s NASSCOM ’05. India’s biggest IT conference. In Mumbai.

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They say that if you want a total-body experience of childbirth, you should sit on a suburban train in Mumbai. It’s not so much that you get off the train as much as you are, well, ‘expelled’ by the heaving, shoving masses. So it was with some trepidation that the lady at the hotel reception began to answer my question after I arrived yesterday evening: how do I take the train from Santa Cruz to Churchgate? (you can tell Mumbai used to be a British stronghold). “It’s rush hour….it’ll be too crowded…” For a minute, I was tempted to heed her well-intentioned advice. Only for a minute.

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An only-ladies compartment “for all 24 hours”, the sign specifies. I hop on the train from Churchgate, back to Santa Cruz, after a long sunset walk on Marine Drive. It’s relatively empty, but by the next stop, it’s packed. A group of Maharashtrian ladies decide to join in, squashing me against two high-school girls in the midst of a heated discussion. Inadvertently, I have become an eavesdropper. I realize that the girl next to me is an expert joke-teller. Each joke is crisply delivered in a practiced monotone, and at the end of each, without even a pause, she moves to the next. “What did one Egyptian boy tell an Egyptian girl at the Giza pyramids?” she says. “Come behind here, and I’ll show you how to become a mummy.” Even before I can shield my ears, she has jumped to the next one. The rising tenor of the group of Maharashtrian women adjacent to me draws me to their conversation. There are two old ladies, and two young ones. Their attention is riveted on one of the younger ones, who, in Marathi, appears to be jumping quickly between topics of religion, recipe-advice and annoying mothers-in-law.

“Cheeeeepssssssssssss.” “Cheeepssssssssssssssss.” It’s the drone of the chip seller, who sounds like he’s taken voice lessons from a snake and an engine. After his fourth round through, I wonder why he’s wasting his time here; nobody’s bought anything yet. Then I watch his strategy. He walks unseeing along, until he gets to the berth of the…erm..heftiest lady aboard. There, he pauses for an extra moment, showcasing his goods. And the 5th round through, sure enough, business has been made.

The train is now so packed that conversationsbreathfeet merge together. A tall, youngish man, with a slew of neon-colored plastic bags, jumps on board. He towers among the women around, droning “Chiiiinaaa bagsss. Chiiina baaags.” Needless to say, he grabs my attention and I turn to take a closer look at the bags. They are cheap, polyester longish bags, replete with neon handles and off-color winnie-the-pooh designs. Who would want to buy…my train of thought is stopped right there, as I see women bending, reaching, straining over to take a closer look and pick the color that their child would want. I turn back around and think of the Indian streets filled with Chinese goods. Yup, India and China are coming closer than ever before.

My stop is approaching, and I’m getting worried. While I’m comfortably seated amidst grandmotherly women and an amusing (though shocking) jokester, I’m worried about my departure. It’s so crowded that I can barely move out of my seat. The train begins to slow down, and I make my way through. Even though the train hasn’t stopped, women have already started alighting, heedless to the attemps of off-bound passengers. Now this, I was not expecting. The force pushing me back inside is getting stronger, yet I try to push my way out. The train has stopped, and I can’t move. I push even harder to get through, stepping on a few people’s toes. The arm clutching my purse has not found it’s way through, it’s stuck. In a final burst, I push again, and I’m out, but I land squarely on the feet of an alighting woman. “Yiiidiot!” she mutters. Oh well, at least I’m out.
A renaissance? Maybe. Who knows what the week might bring? :)