[nukkad] [tp] Nice Article

["Gurunath M." <>]

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 I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) 
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Hi
  A nice article I came acress, Hope u like it 2.

Regards,
Guru
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Track record

- Rahul Phondke



Growing up in Bombay, you cannot escape the transport medium of the
millions. It doesn't allow you to. The moment you try to escape it, all the
other millions stand in the way politely telling you , " Ae Chikne, Bandra
us baju aayaega". No self respecting Indian will ever take this tone of
voice lying down. Fortunately for me, I was not a self respecting Indian. I
was just a Bombayite and as most other Bombayites out there must have
guessed by now , I am referring to the local trains.

In my college days ( My College days - [Mai Kaw - Lej Daze] noun (irr) tr -
I - Wednesdays or Fridays unless the Bhavan's college which was opposite
ours had a rose day), I travelled regularly by trains. The locals in Bombay
are a good prep school for life and a metaphor for lifes experience. Missing
your destinations because others stand in your way, spending your entire
journey confining your three dimensional body in a two dimensional space
etc. We were among the privileged few, who then had what was called a
student's pass. This paper enabled us to travel first class with our student
budgets. Student budgets were very important those days as without them most
of the students would have been deprived of their copies of Debonair, which
in my days formed an important input in the education.

Travelling First class was a big plus over the most of the other people who
traveled second class, an experience, to which we shall come later. The
unwritten rule while travelling first class was to be snooty. This meant
that the seats which were meant for three people could not be occupied by
four people. This was way different than travelling second class where seats
meant for three people could be at times occupied by six people or at times
by six families and during rush hours by groups of people that you would
normally associate with election rallies. This technique was impossible to
practice in First class where people wore ties and read Economic Times
instead of "Loksatta". I think the only time a copy of the Economic times
made it's way into the Second class compartment it was in the form of a
wrapping for "Valsad chikkoos 2 rupaykepaach" .Occasionally, however one
would see the stray bum who would be riding in style in the First Class
compartment but true to the First Class tradition, the accepted convention
was to look at him as you would look at some one, who deposited his motions
on your desk and that was it. No words and definitely no fights.

Second class was in a different class altogether. The most important skill
to be successful in second class was to be supremely insulting. The
following conversation (which I am not making up) between an elderly Telugu
gentleman (who are called Madrasis in Bombay out of respect) and a young
confident man, who was making rapid advances in life by combing his hair
every two minutes and selling tickets in black outside cinema theatres,
should highlight exactly what I am trying to convey

Telugu gentleman - "Excuse me, toom jara ooodarko Ona. Tum mere pair pe kada
ain"

Confident Youth - "Aee Idli, Pair pe khada nahin to kya tere ganje sir pe
khada rahoon"

Teluge Gentleman - "Tum itna ruuude kaiko ?, Zhara Ijjat se bhat kharna"

Brash youth - "Abe ae takle, Ijjat mangta to Mercedes me jaane ka, Local
mein nahin, Kya?

As you can see from above, by being insulting, our young man established his
territory firmly, which is an infinitely better practice than some other
members of his own kind who establish their territory by standing
strategically on three legs over bushes. That was the norm. Establish your
territory first. Of course one has to be realistic in his expectations. If
you try to claim one full seat on the 3 seater second class bench, you will
probably alight at your station in a body bag. The one way to calculate what
space you are entitled to is use the following formula

a) Find out the area occupied by your behind. Unless your name is Manisha
Koirala, this figure should be less than the area of a regulation tennis
court.

b) Find out the total area available in the train and write it down on a
piece of paper. Now throw the paper away because that has no relevance to
our calculation

c) Divide the area in figure a by the number of passengers in the coach or
by the population of Bangladesh whichever is greater

d) The resultant figure is your territory.

There existed a third compartment which for the sake of reading ease we
shall refer to as "The Third Compartment" . This was meant for the
dabbawallahs, bhajiwallahs but most Parsis I knew still travelled First
class. As far as other normal passengers were concerned, this compartment
was to be used only in case you could not get a good seat anywhere else on
the train and this includes the rooftop and the undercarriage.

I sincerely hope that by now you are in the know of the mumbai rush hour
grunge, grime and grudges and now that you are, let me wish you all the best
for the request that you will be putting in shortly to your boss for a
voluntary transfer to Begusarai.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~
Gurunath M.
m.gurunath@mobileum.com
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~~~

"Every exit is an entry somewhere."





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