My readers will no doubt remember my post on Mumbai’s Local Trains. Here is another endearing story about how helpful the commuters can be.
“This can happen only in Mumbai. Only local train passengers in Mumbai will know how helpful commuters try to be.
Last week, a hapless victim fell prey to the over enthusiastic Mumbai’s local train commuters.
Our hero, a man from Pune, wanted to go to Matunga, but as misfortune would have it, he boarded a fast train not halting at his destination.
On seeing his plight, a sympathetic co-passenger decided to come to his rescue. It seemed that he had been commuting by that particular train (6:03 pm Kasara Fast) for the past 6 years and had noticed that the train always slowed down just before Matunga station and crawled at a snail’s pace while passing through it. He told the man to jump out of the running train as it slowed down and that with a little bit of fleet-footedness, he would make it safely on terra firma. However, knowing the man’s inexperience, he added some words of caution: “Keep running the moment you jump or you’ll fall. Just keep running.”
He stressed the word “running” lest the man not know the laws of motion.
The train did slow down just before Matunga station and at the prompting of his mentor, our hero jumped out of the train and started running as if all hell had broken loose.
Meanwhile, the train slowed down further, and the man was running faster than the train. In the process, he reached the door of the next compartment and the footboard commuters there pulled him in thinking he was trying to board the train! To his agony, train picked up speed and sped past Matunga and his new co-passengers started to congratulate him on how lucky he had been, until he told them that they had actually undone what he had done with great difficulty.
Those standing at the door of his “ex-compartment” had witnessed the whole drama and just couldn’t stop laughing at the poor man’s plight, while he grinned sheepishly!!!”
This is an all time favourite song about Mumbai which has been sung since the fifties of the last century which holds the same truths for today’s Mumbai too.
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