A Sri Lankan Train Ride

A couple of friends and I made a trip to the Pearl Island of Sri Lanka last week. We stayed in Unawatuna, a beach in Galle about 116 kms from Colombo. On the way to Unawatuna, we drove down to the South Coast. However, on the way back, we decided to take the train.

While the train was rather rickety, the sights and scenery throughout were breathtaking. For the most part of the ride, the sea was in full view. At a few points I could see the waves lashing up against the tracks. All of this—the sea, the breeze, the sights—made the crowd and the heat so much more bearable.

A few tips—to get the best seat, which is the window seat of course, get in quick (these trains get pretty crowded). The train travels North from Galle to Colombo, so the best seats are on the left side of the train. The windows are large and completely open without grills. So hang onto your stuff!

Galle to Colombo

Crack crackety crack!

7am! I’m awake and groggy. The crackers have started, the sun is streaming through my flimsy curtains. It’s Friday and it’s a holiday! One of the few joys of working in India, you get more holidays here than in any other country.

Diwali again, and love is in the air. It’s been Diwali here this whole week. People are in a nicer disposition. They even look nicer, cleaner, and so well groomed. The women have been wearing the bestest of the bestest sarees and some men have even shaved. Public transport is oozing with people in a good mood; this having made this whole past week so unusually pleasant. Even last evening’s sudden downpour didn’t hamper the festive spirit.

Regardless of religion, Diwali is probably the only time of year when everyone looks happier. Serial lights hanging from every surface actually lightens up the night, the diyas look beautiful, and the rangolis add that splash of colour to an otherwise boring, routine life.

The weather as well has started changing; it has gotten cooler, making those long commutes a little easier, especially if you happen to travel a couple of hours each day to work. Getting off a crowded bus and walking doesn’t get you thinking ‘oofff’! iPod on LOUD, wind blowing, traffic noise drowned out, it’s actually a pleasant walk.

For me, the best part of the season is the city’s streets. The lights really do make me happier, there is something beautiful about them. Even the loud garish ones don’t seem too bad. And have you ever noticed how the serial lights on disco mode strung from the shadiest shops and bars make you want to bob your head and tap feet? Haven’t done that ever? Take a walk down your market street or the main road, and experience this once-in-a year joy.

  Happy Diwali People!

Of lights and sounds…

I was playing around with my iPod today and thought about recording the stretch from Andheri-Kurla road to the West. To all you Bombayites living elsewhere, here’s a piece of your city at Diwali…

…and here’s another

Bombay-Bharuch

I wrote this piece as part of a class assignment… I got a little dreamy whilst writing this, so forgive my over-sentimentality if you detect any.

I’m on my way to Jhagadia, a small village in the block district of Bharuch in Gujurat. I’ve never been to Modi-land before and I feel a little apprehensive; the riots of 2002 and the few movies that followed left a deep discomfort in my mind.

I have volunteered to travel the 355km distance from Bombay to visit a Children’s Home for Tribal girls, where I will be conducting a Needs Assessment. Needs Assessment, an all time favourite word in the NGO world! I’m unemployed, in need of adventure and looking for work. So why not make a combination of it all?

Mumbai Central- the station I get my passenger train is filled with all types of people, although the majority are male. I can hear a garble of languages, and I’m not sure if it’s a dialect of Hindi or Gujurati or mix of both, for all I know it could be Urdu. It’s a fascinating scene of dress and colour; crisp white pyjamas, bright chiffon saris, knitted skull caps, stark black bhurkhas and what not. My mind takes me back to the Hindu-Muslim conflict and wonders how frightful this same journey must been not so long ago. But it seems like things have changed, if only superficially. Faces don’t look fearful. A sense of the all forbearing Indian train camaraderie settles in as the train starts moving, and I turn my thoughts to the world passing by.

I am engulfed by a childlike feeling of excitement, having got the window seat, and almost wanting to stick my hand out to feel the July rains. The scenery constantly changes as the train moves from city to town to village, concrete to huts to green fields. I can’t recognise the trees nor all the kinds of fields I pass, but nonetheless it’s all a beautiful palate of green shades. For a city girl like me, this is a feast. The monsoons transform a parched land into a blanket of lush beauty.

I can see farmers, men and women, working the fields, going about their day. I try to imagine myself doing that kind of work and it all appears very fantasy –like. It’s the kind of picture that makes you want to give up the city and move a thousand miles away only to live a basic existence. But the train keeps moving from town to village reminding me of how difficult it would be to give up the urban.

The old man sitting by my side throughout this time keeps to himself. And I think, finally someone who can leave me, to me. I’m not keen on small talk on journey that is for the most part, quite pleasant. But my impression of this seemingly nice old man changes as my journey draws to an end. Half an hour before the train reaches Bharuch, my stop, the man stretches across me and with a good portion of gusto, spits out the paan he’d been chewing. A little of this red mix of saliva and betel nut ricochets off the bar and lands on the window sill, exactly where I was resting my hand. Eewww! This shouldn’t be surprising, and yet I think, why god why? Why are we a race of such despicable filths! I do the only think I can think of, move away from the window and pretend this hasn’t affected me, all the time fighting the urge to scream.

I’m in a dilemma. I can’t seem to pucker up the courage to tell him of his wrong. For one he’s older and the other, my Hindi is inadequate to politely say what needs to be said. And so I leave it. My experience with most older people tells me that you can’t change something that has been reinforced in one’s mind for decades.

So I focus on my destination, my search for other adventures. Ones that will hopefully, hold more pleasant moments.

Bombay Then, Mumbai Now

My colleagues at PUKAR recently gifted me the coffee table book Bombay Then, Mumbai Now; a concise but splendidly visual book to take you on a journey through the city’s history. The photographs are beautiful, giving the reader a fantastic image of the city that once was and how it has grown to be what it is today.

I started with Bombay Now that has an essay written by Naresh Fernandes. A book on Bombay will not be one unless phrases like ‘cultural melting pot’ and ‘packed like sardines’ are used somewhere or the other. In that, it typically describes the city as crowded, filthy and spirited. It contains plenty of facts that have been talked about in many a blog, book and print article. He does however start with his own experiences of this city, in particular the ‘film shuttlers’ and his home Bandra, that makes the essay quite enjoyable.  

Reading on I find that one of the most interesting arguments on this city is very aptly articulated in this  statement he makes…‘The suggestion that Mumbai has some magical, innate hardiness has absolved our administrators of the responsibility of actually fixing our problems. No matter how bad things get, they seem to suggest, we have an infinite capacity to cope. But now it’s all too clear that we're wearing thin.’

We are wearing thin!

Bombay Then takes a look into British ruled Bombay up until the mid 1900’s. Unlike Naresh, Jim Masselos takes his reader through a very well crafted picture of Bombay when the ethos of the city was taking roots. He describes a  city that once boasted of its beauty in architecture, pride of its citizens in the city and more importantly, its cosmopolitan culture; all three of which over the years seems to have eroded. Nevertheless, the description of the city’s history does make you wonder at its growth and transformation as industry grew through the years. You cannot help but feel nostalgic at the city's better planned past and only wished for it to have continued to the present day.

BOMBAY THEN/MUMBAI NOW: Jim Masselos, Pramod Kapoor, Naresh Fernandes, Chirodeep Chaudhuri; Roli Books Pvt. Ltd., M-75 Greater Kailash II Market, New Delhi-110048.

Smart cards and street smarts

A few days ago I was meeting friends for dinner for a birthday celebration. And as Indian Standard Time goes they were predictably late, although the predictability didn’t help the long wait.

I was waiting for them at Dadar Station, which in my mind is the busiest station that ever existed. People whizzing in and out, running for trains, changing direction, screaming at people bumping into them, children running about the place while their parents figure out which train to take and the heat getting on everyone’s nerves.

I decided to perch myself right under the fan that was generating the strongest breeze and which also happened to be belting out the loudest noise. As I waited for tardy friends (who I hope will read this post) I noticed two kids (a boy and a girl) standing near the newly installed Smart Card Ticket Machines. They in turn were surrounded by a huge crowd waiting for their tickets. As the crowd dispersed, I heard the boy scream ‘local ticket yahan milega, local ticket yahan milega’. (Local tickets available here). The long line of commuters waiting to buy tickets at the counter soon ran to them.

So what exactly was happening… One of them was operating the machine and the other was collecting the money in a little box. At first I thought the two were probably charging  a commission on each ticket. So I moved closer to figure out what was happening. But when I inquired with one of their customers, it turned out that they weren’t charging anything for their services.

When the crowd around them had dwindled to a few people I asked the little chap what was in it for them if they charged the the same rate… and this is what he said… For every 500 rupees of tickets they sell, they make 50 rupees from the ticketing counter. That works out to a 10% commission. 50 rupees on every 500 may seem little, but at Dadar station there is no dearth of commuters waiting to buy tickets and it seemed like their 500 top-up lasted all of 15-20mins.

Before I got a chance to ask any more questions, there was another crowd of commuters waiting for tickets. Who exactly it was who was paying them this commission, I don’t know… How old were these kids, I’m guessing approximately anyway between 13 and 15yrs. I was just struck by the ingenuity and tenacity of it all.

 

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To Khopoli and back.

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Khopoli is the last station on the Central line of the Mumbai Railways. From Dadar it takes approximately 2hrs and 15mins to reach depending on whether you’ve taken a fast or slow train. The frequency is rather tiresome as there are direct trains from CST only every 2 hours. I know that the Mumbai Railways is one of the best in the world in terms of frequency and coverage, however with the boundaries of the city constantly expanding there are a lot more places that desperately need to be covered.

A group of us trouped to Jambhulpada a village about 22kms away from Khopoli station on Friday as part of our Action Research project at PUKAR. Our purpose, to find out how the two groups who have been part of the Youth Fellowship Programme have been doing. The two groups have been working on the subject of Katkari Tribals, the indigenous people of India. Their small projects have many findings that range from exploitative conditions to their living environment and more prominently their lives.   

The trip in total required eight and half hours of travel time, and as long and as tiring as it was, it was equally nice once we were actually there.

Meanderings and Ventilations

Today I was actually out of the office and into the city. I had an interview to conduct and it took me travelling from Bandra to Prabhadevi. I usually travel by train wherever I go but this time I decided to take the bus considering it would drop me to the point I needed to be at.

Buses in the last few years have taken on a new avatar, Advertising. They initially started using the outside of the buses to carry ads which was followed by using small spaces inside the bus and now its grown to using Acrylic Bus Handles to carry advert messages.

I think that’s fine even though they are a tad uncomfortable to actually grip. But the  newly installed TV screens which play repeated adverts takes the cake, constantly playing repeated ads for inane TV soaps to ads for toilet cleaners.

What got to me the most this time was an ad for a Reproductive Centre. It had some guy giving the commentary while the background music was the signature tune from Forest Gump the movie. Another ad for an Animation Institute used a picture of Alexis Beidel, star of a popular US American-Drama show. Copy write laws seem completely non-existent in this city and I’m pretty sure across the country as well. It isn’t uncommon to find a small time hair and beauty salon flaunting a picture of Aishwaraya Rai ‘Bachchan’  on their headboard, like they were her personal hair stylists.

Anyway, getting back to the bus, I sat the forty minute exasperatingly hot journey listening to repeat after repeat of the same ads completely annoyed that authorities make money at the expense of a passenger’s peace of mind. I wonder if they ever stopped to think if we would get irritated by loud speakers blaring nonsense right above your head (or into your face when standing). Isn’t it bad enough we bear with it on long distance journey’s?

Time Out wrote an article on the rudeness of the city, of people monopolising dressing rooms to bhajani mandals in the trains gifting you a cranky mood for the remainder of your day. I think BEST authorities need to read that article.

Not everyone wants to pass their time on the bus listening to senseless ads.