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My day starts as early as 04:30 in the morning. I have to report to office based at Cuffe Parade, South Mumbai for a 07:30 -16:00 HRS shift. I went through the daily chores and left home at 05:35. Took a share auto and reached Dombivli Station. I knew I was getting late so ran across the FOB just to find the days’ 1st Fast local from Karjat to CSTM departing from platform no 5. It was leaving before time. Without wasting a second, rushed to catch the CSTM Slow local leaving from platform No 2. I managed to get into the Kalyan End First Class, settled down comfortably.
I had shifted to Dombivli only in the last year. For the 18 years previous to that I had been staying at Thane, so I was well versed with the timings of the Thane locals. I knew that the 5:59 DI-CSTM will arrive on platform no 4 on Thane at 6.21 and following it is a CSTM Fast starting from Thane at 6:25. I often got down from the Dombivli Local and caught this fast local from Thane. This local is a fast local only for namesake; it always trails the DI-CSTM right up to CSTM. Seldom does it crossover to the fast tracks as they are choc a bloc with Mail/Express traffic in the early morning. I love sitting at the window seat and observing parallel action with Siddheshwar/Vidharba/Matsyagandha Express depending upon their arrival into Mumbai section. I have often thought of complaining to CR via its SMS service about the trailing nature of this train. Most of the slow locals cover the 34 kms distance in 55-57 minutes. This 6:25 fast local takes almost the same time. Reached CSTM at 7:20 and took the BEST bus 138 to touch the office at 7:35am. Work was progressing smoothly, when my mom called up with the news of an ill-fated accident at Thane Kopri Bridge. I immediately called up CR IVRS 139 from my cellphone to know the latest on the fiasco. The IVRS was constantly mentioning about all lines being shut till further notice. I knew that I was many of those harried commuters marked for a long haul today.
I informed the HR Department about the news so that they could make arrangements for the second shift starting at 15:00 Hrs. Many of our employees come from places north of Thane. My reliever reached office by 15:30. He comes from GTB Nagar. He mentioned that his harbour line local was stuck between Masjid and CSTM for more than 20 minutes, finally after losing patience he walked down to CSTM to catch a cab and reach office. I left office at 16:30, took a BEST Bus 9 to CSTM, reached at 16:50 and found the place to be choc a bloc with commuters with no trains to go. There were announcements of CR trains plying only till Ghatkopar and Kurla. They also mentioned that commuters could take the Harbour line trains till Vashi free of cost and then take the Vashi-Thane locals. The PAS also mentioned about the special trains being run between Thane-Karjat and Thane-Kasara. The indicators at the platform 4 and 5 had trains for Dadar and Ghatkopar. These were of no use to me, so I decided to wait and watch. The harbour line trains were plying late by 5-10 minutes. I went and stood at the island platform between 2 and 3 as it was relatively less crowded as compared to platform 1 and island platform 1/2. I deliberately left a Vashi local, a Bandra local, and a Panvel local. 17:08 Belapur local was scheduled on platform no 2, as soon as the local entered CST, people started jumping into the compartments, so characteristic of us Mumbaikars. By the time the local came to a halt, all the seats were occupied and I managed to get a third seat from the window. The train left at 17:16 and by that time it was very crowded. The run from CST –Kurla(Harbour) was uneventful. At Kurla we had a load of people waiting to get in. It was pity to see even old people having endured the rush. I finally got down at Vashi at 18:03. I was surprised to see a train coming from Thane side on platform no 1 and the indicators were not mentioning Thane but CST. There were few people who were seated in the train and I asked them about the final destination of their local. “CST”, they said. Then, it dawned upon me that CR had started plying Thane-Vashi-CST locals. I must say, they did show some grit in implementing the same. Vashi is a familiar territory for me.
I decided to venture out. I love this place with its vast promenades in front of the station. Everything looks so organized here in the capital of Navi-Mumbai. There is enough place for everybody, even though it is surrounded by 3 huge malls in the vicinity. I decided to take a NMMT/KDMT bus to Dombivli from here. As soon as I came out of the station sub-way, the NMMT depot at the station was the place I was headed to. The Dombivli stop was invisible. It was swarmed by anxious commuters. There was no way; I could get any close to it. Then I saw a huge line of commuters encircling or spiralling the complete NMMT depot twice and then further extending into the walkways. To my utter disbelief, it was the line I was supposed to join. I resigned to my fate and decided to find the end of this line to wait for my turn. It felt as if Ganesh-utsav was on and I was trying to get a glimpse of the famous Lalbaugcha Raja. The line was never ending and after 10 minutes of scampering through the depot found the end of the line. I found that many commuters had decided to munch on something before they get into the bus as that was also going to equally arduous. Eating-options are aplenty in Vashi. I could see that many buses were being specially roped into run on this route. The line was moving at a snail’s pace. There was girl standing behind me in the line, who was continuously calling out my name on her cellphone. She was chit-chatting with her boyfriend, who incidentally shared my name. It was as if she was talking to me in chaste marathi. I was listening to all of their conversation for a few minutes, then felt my self-conscience finding me guilty and then avoided giving her an ear. I also overheard an old man asking his family members to have the dinner and go to bed as he was bound to catch the bus only by 12 midnight. He was very confident of catching the bus only by midnight. This made my rethink my decision of waiting for the bus in this never ending line. I decided to walk back to the station.
Sighting a Thane local scheduled on Platform 1, I scampered through the subway and timed by jump into the local as soon as it entered the platform and managed to secure a creditable second seat from the window. The Thane local left at 18:44. The EMU was never really picking up speed; it’s partly to do with the stations being close to each other and numerous curves on this section. We travelled at good speed only between Rabale and Airoli. The run from Airoli to Vitava RUB was equally good, and then started the super crawl. I also observed that we criss-cross the Thane-Belapur highway twice in a matter of few minutes, because of an almost horse shoe curve on this section. Finally touched down at battleground Thane at 19:30. The atmosphere here was completely bleak. It was slowly getting to me. My Vashi-Thane local was rechristened as CST (harbour). This was the first time when we were seeing CST (Harbour) leaving from Platform no 9 and 10/10A in Thane on a circuitous route. This would be a good option for all the commuters leaving in this belt. The railways should consider running such locals on a daily basis at an interval of 45- 60 minutes. It would be a real boon for these people. The EMU was berthed on platform no 9. I jumped over to the tracks of the underdeveloped platform no 8. Spotted 3102 Rajendra Nagar express stabled on platform no 7. There were no lights in the entire rake. The guard was sitting in the last coach in complete darkness. I pity this man. Only god knew, how many more hours did he have to put up in the guard van, before getting relieved. I took the Kalyan End FOB to reach Platform no 3 at Thane. The PAS was continuously alerting people of no trains being scheduled from platform 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. The only trains that were running were on platform 9, 10 and platform no 3.
The station had become one huge refugee camp. There was no place for even sitting down on the floor of the platform. Being able to get down onto the platform no 3 was a commendable task in itself. A 0:00 EMU to Asangaon was scheduled. Do I need to elaborate more on the crowd situation in the train? The ladies coaches were equally bad. The only thing I could hear was war cries. For some unknown reason, the 12 car AC/DC emu was not making efforts to move out to its destination. It stayed on the platform for a painstaking 30 minutes. I decided to walk through the breadth of the platform and then possibly try to get into an EMU waiting at the Kalyan end at the Thane Far signal on the UP Slow line. The tracks were not visible compounded with the advent of night and the sea of harried commuters. I walked a few steps and then realized that there was no point in walking down the tracks as I never intended to sit in the compartment as it would become difficult to alight at Dombivli, so back tracked and reached Platform no 3 again. By now there were a good number of commuters perched atop the coaches too. I feared sighting a few electrocutions too. Finally, when the EMU moved, there was a loud clamor of “Ganpati Bappa Morya!!!” The sight on the last coach was to be seen to be believed. There were at least 5 people hanging on to the motorman’s door. There were people standing on the cow-catchers and dangling from the windshield. I was having second thoughts and rued the fact that if I had waited long enough at Vashi, I could have managed to catch a bus with relatively acceptable crowd. This was not the time for introspection. I readied myself to plunge into the next local that would arrive on the platform. I could manage to see the headlights of the EMU waiting to arrive on this platform. After another painstaking 15 minutes the train entered the platform with commuters already filled to the brim. With all my energy, I jumped into the train and luckily found a place to stand besides the door. Since the Dombivli had a double discharge platform no 1, I thought it would be wise to stand at the eastern side door as the only station I will have to encounter enroute would be the relatively calm Kopar, as compared to Kalva and Mumbra. This EMU was scheduled as 0:00 Hrs Karjat.
The desperate and now tiring crowd was making their last ditch efforts of getting into the Karjat EMU. Everyone was getting sandwiched. I was relatively safer from the push endured by others by being on the side of the door. I could hear all sorts of abuses being hurled by the unsuccessful ones to the ones inside the train. It was becoming increasing difficult to breathe. It could be easily sensed that the amount of oxygen would have dropped drastically inside the coach. All of us were sweating profusely. I had to bear the burden of 2 not so kind gentlemen on my new pair of sports shoes. Both my hands were locked high in the air. I could sense that my cell phone was continuously ringing, but I couldn’t bring my hands down to the pockets of my pant. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to get it out of the pocket. There were people around me who were giving threatening stares for disturbing their equilibrium while doing so. It was my mom calling, who wanted to know about my whereabouts. She was hell-bent on knowing how I reached Thane as I had told her earlier that I will be catching a bus from Vashi. I had to explain her that I was not in a position to talk now and by talking into the phone I was actually irritating a lot of others. I didn’t dare putting the cell phone where it belonged as any attempt of doing would have met with a greater resistance. I held it in my hand above the head. There were no signs of the train departing. It was increasingly become difficult to stay put in the position I was in. My neck had almost twisted by 90 degrees to accommodate someone’s hand. I was praying for the train to start. Finally with a little jolt it started at sometime past 20:30 hrs. The journey from Thane to Dombivli consisted of many more pushes, screams and abuses. A few people were still cracking some PJs. I had no option, but to laugh at them. A group of youngsters who were at the door were pushing the crowd further in with the passing of each station enroute.
By the time, Dombivli arrived, I was completely drenched in sweat and the texture of everything I was wearing had become darker. It was a huge sigh of relief to finally alight. I stood there on platform 1 for a few seconds, trying to gasp some much needed fresh air. Then, I took the Kalyan end FOB to come out of the station on the east side. I didn’t want any more surprises so quietly took a share auto and reached home in 10 minutes. When I reached home, I was in no mood to entertain anything other than taking a nice cold shower and then gulping down all that mom had prepared for me. Its hard to not recollect the ad campaign across various television channels by ‘American Tourister’ which claims, “SURVIVE MUMBAI , SURVIVE THE WORLD”….so true…..
I had shifted to Dombivli only in the last year. For the 18 years previous to that I had been staying at Thane, so I was well versed with the timings of the Thane locals. I knew that the 5:59 DI-CSTM will arrive on platform no 4 on Thane at 6.21 and following it is a CSTM Fast starting from Thane at 6:25. I often got down from the Dombivli Local and caught this fast local from Thane. This local is a fast local only for namesake; it always trails the DI-CSTM right up to CSTM. Seldom does it crossover to the fast tracks as they are choc a bloc with Mail/Express traffic in the early morning. I love sitting at the window seat and observing parallel action with Siddheshwar/Vidharba/Matsyagandha Express depending upon their arrival into Mumbai section. I have often thought of complaining to CR via its SMS service about the trailing nature of this train. Most of the slow locals cover the 34 kms distance in 55-57 minutes. This 6:25 fast local takes almost the same time. Reached CSTM at 7:20 and took the BEST bus 138 to touch the office at 7:35am. Work was progressing smoothly, when my mom called up with the news of an ill-fated accident at Thane Kopri Bridge. I immediately called up CR IVRS 139 from my cellphone to know the latest on the fiasco. The IVRS was constantly mentioning about all lines being shut till further notice. I knew that I was many of those harried commuters marked for a long haul today.
I informed the HR Department about the news so that they could make arrangements for the second shift starting at 15:00 Hrs. Many of our employees come from places north of Thane. My reliever reached office by 15:30. He comes from GTB Nagar. He mentioned that his harbour line local was stuck between Masjid and CSTM for more than 20 minutes, finally after losing patience he walked down to CSTM to catch a cab and reach office. I left office at 16:30, took a BEST Bus 9 to CSTM, reached at 16:50 and found the place to be choc a bloc with commuters with no trains to go. There were announcements of CR trains plying only till Ghatkopar and Kurla. They also mentioned that commuters could take the Harbour line trains till Vashi free of cost and then take the Vashi-Thane locals. The PAS also mentioned about the special trains being run between Thane-Karjat and Thane-Kasara. The indicators at the platform 4 and 5 had trains for Dadar and Ghatkopar. These were of no use to me, so I decided to wait and watch. The harbour line trains were plying late by 5-10 minutes. I went and stood at the island platform between 2 and 3 as it was relatively less crowded as compared to platform 1 and island platform 1/2. I deliberately left a Vashi local, a Bandra local, and a Panvel local. 17:08 Belapur local was scheduled on platform no 2, as soon as the local entered CST, people started jumping into the compartments, so characteristic of us Mumbaikars. By the time the local came to a halt, all the seats were occupied and I managed to get a third seat from the window. The train left at 17:16 and by that time it was very crowded. The run from CST –Kurla(Harbour) was uneventful. At Kurla we had a load of people waiting to get in. It was pity to see even old people having endured the rush. I finally got down at Vashi at 18:03. I was surprised to see a train coming from Thane side on platform no 1 and the indicators were not mentioning Thane but CST. There were few people who were seated in the train and I asked them about the final destination of their local. “CST”, they said. Then, it dawned upon me that CR had started plying Thane-Vashi-CST locals. I must say, they did show some grit in implementing the same. Vashi is a familiar territory for me.
I decided to venture out. I love this place with its vast promenades in front of the station. Everything looks so organized here in the capital of Navi-Mumbai. There is enough place for everybody, even though it is surrounded by 3 huge malls in the vicinity. I decided to take a NMMT/KDMT bus to Dombivli from here. As soon as I came out of the station sub-way, the NMMT depot at the station was the place I was headed to. The Dombivli stop was invisible. It was swarmed by anxious commuters. There was no way; I could get any close to it. Then I saw a huge line of commuters encircling or spiralling the complete NMMT depot twice and then further extending into the walkways. To my utter disbelief, it was the line I was supposed to join. I resigned to my fate and decided to find the end of this line to wait for my turn. It felt as if Ganesh-utsav was on and I was trying to get a glimpse of the famous Lalbaugcha Raja. The line was never ending and after 10 minutes of scampering through the depot found the end of the line. I found that many commuters had decided to munch on something before they get into the bus as that was also going to equally arduous. Eating-options are aplenty in Vashi. I could see that many buses were being specially roped into run on this route. The line was moving at a snail’s pace. There was girl standing behind me in the line, who was continuously calling out my name on her cellphone. She was chit-chatting with her boyfriend, who incidentally shared my name. It was as if she was talking to me in chaste marathi. I was listening to all of their conversation for a few minutes, then felt my self-conscience finding me guilty and then avoided giving her an ear. I also overheard an old man asking his family members to have the dinner and go to bed as he was bound to catch the bus only by 12 midnight. He was very confident of catching the bus only by midnight. This made my rethink my decision of waiting for the bus in this never ending line. I decided to walk back to the station.
Sighting a Thane local scheduled on Platform 1, I scampered through the subway and timed by jump into the local as soon as it entered the platform and managed to secure a creditable second seat from the window. The Thane local left at 18:44. The EMU was never really picking up speed; it’s partly to do with the stations being close to each other and numerous curves on this section. We travelled at good speed only between Rabale and Airoli. The run from Airoli to Vitava RUB was equally good, and then started the super crawl. I also observed that we criss-cross the Thane-Belapur highway twice in a matter of few minutes, because of an almost horse shoe curve on this section. Finally touched down at battleground Thane at 19:30. The atmosphere here was completely bleak. It was slowly getting to me. My Vashi-Thane local was rechristened as CST (harbour). This was the first time when we were seeing CST (Harbour) leaving from Platform no 9 and 10/10A in Thane on a circuitous route. This would be a good option for all the commuters leaving in this belt. The railways should consider running such locals on a daily basis at an interval of 45- 60 minutes. It would be a real boon for these people. The EMU was berthed on platform no 9. I jumped over to the tracks of the underdeveloped platform no 8. Spotted 3102 Rajendra Nagar express stabled on platform no 7. There were no lights in the entire rake. The guard was sitting in the last coach in complete darkness. I pity this man. Only god knew, how many more hours did he have to put up in the guard van, before getting relieved. I took the Kalyan End FOB to reach Platform no 3 at Thane. The PAS was continuously alerting people of no trains being scheduled from platform 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. The only trains that were running were on platform 9, 10 and platform no 3.
The station had become one huge refugee camp. There was no place for even sitting down on the floor of the platform. Being able to get down onto the platform no 3 was a commendable task in itself. A 0:00 EMU to Asangaon was scheduled. Do I need to elaborate more on the crowd situation in the train? The ladies coaches were equally bad. The only thing I could hear was war cries. For some unknown reason, the 12 car AC/DC emu was not making efforts to move out to its destination. It stayed on the platform for a painstaking 30 minutes. I decided to walk through the breadth of the platform and then possibly try to get into an EMU waiting at the Kalyan end at the Thane Far signal on the UP Slow line. The tracks were not visible compounded with the advent of night and the sea of harried commuters. I walked a few steps and then realized that there was no point in walking down the tracks as I never intended to sit in the compartment as it would become difficult to alight at Dombivli, so back tracked and reached Platform no 3 again. By now there were a good number of commuters perched atop the coaches too. I feared sighting a few electrocutions too. Finally, when the EMU moved, there was a loud clamor of “Ganpati Bappa Morya!!!” The sight on the last coach was to be seen to be believed. There were at least 5 people hanging on to the motorman’s door. There were people standing on the cow-catchers and dangling from the windshield. I was having second thoughts and rued the fact that if I had waited long enough at Vashi, I could have managed to catch a bus with relatively acceptable crowd. This was not the time for introspection. I readied myself to plunge into the next local that would arrive on the platform. I could manage to see the headlights of the EMU waiting to arrive on this platform. After another painstaking 15 minutes the train entered the platform with commuters already filled to the brim. With all my energy, I jumped into the train and luckily found a place to stand besides the door. Since the Dombivli had a double discharge platform no 1, I thought it would be wise to stand at the eastern side door as the only station I will have to encounter enroute would be the relatively calm Kopar, as compared to Kalva and Mumbra. This EMU was scheduled as 0:00 Hrs Karjat.
The desperate and now tiring crowd was making their last ditch efforts of getting into the Karjat EMU. Everyone was getting sandwiched. I was relatively safer from the push endured by others by being on the side of the door. I could hear all sorts of abuses being hurled by the unsuccessful ones to the ones inside the train. It was becoming increasing difficult to breathe. It could be easily sensed that the amount of oxygen would have dropped drastically inside the coach. All of us were sweating profusely. I had to bear the burden of 2 not so kind gentlemen on my new pair of sports shoes. Both my hands were locked high in the air. I could sense that my cell phone was continuously ringing, but I couldn’t bring my hands down to the pockets of my pant. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to get it out of the pocket. There were people around me who were giving threatening stares for disturbing their equilibrium while doing so. It was my mom calling, who wanted to know about my whereabouts. She was hell-bent on knowing how I reached Thane as I had told her earlier that I will be catching a bus from Vashi. I had to explain her that I was not in a position to talk now and by talking into the phone I was actually irritating a lot of others. I didn’t dare putting the cell phone where it belonged as any attempt of doing would have met with a greater resistance. I held it in my hand above the head. There were no signs of the train departing. It was increasingly become difficult to stay put in the position I was in. My neck had almost twisted by 90 degrees to accommodate someone’s hand. I was praying for the train to start. Finally with a little jolt it started at sometime past 20:30 hrs. The journey from Thane to Dombivli consisted of many more pushes, screams and abuses. A few people were still cracking some PJs. I had no option, but to laugh at them. A group of youngsters who were at the door were pushing the crowd further in with the passing of each station enroute.
By the time, Dombivli arrived, I was completely drenched in sweat and the texture of everything I was wearing had become darker. It was a huge sigh of relief to finally alight. I stood there on platform 1 for a few seconds, trying to gasp some much needed fresh air. Then, I took the Kalyan end FOB to come out of the station on the east side. I didn’t want any more surprises so quietly took a share auto and reached home in 10 minutes. When I reached home, I was in no mood to entertain anything other than taking a nice cold shower and then gulping down all that mom had prepared for me. Its hard to not recollect the ad campaign across various television channels by ‘American Tourister’ which claims, “SURVIVE MUMBAI , SURVIVE THE WORLD”….so true…..
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