Post my BEST trauma revelation, people have been recommending the Mumbai local trains. Been there done that and survived it too! I don’t like to travel by locals because I am not a very adventurous person. I don’t get along very well with the rest of my body but I still like it attached to me very much. And being so popular doesn’t help either.

A couple of days back I had to go to Thane for some work. Since I had to be there by 5 pm I had planned to leave office by 3:30 pm, head to borivali and take a bus from there. That was the only was I knew to get to Thane. Till I ran in to KKK.

KKK (real name withheld as nickname is too funny :D) is a fellow copywriter at P*******m and every day somehow he manages to drag his ass all the way to Santacruz from Thane and still has energy to go back at night. If it was me in his place I would have probably thought “Fuck It” and then gone to a bar and passed out there.

Any way so I decided to utilise the experience that KKK seemed to have in such mysterious matters. Turned out he was also leaving for home early so he decided to accompany me. Yay! Now I could not get lost.

So we left office and took a local from Khar station to Dadar. This wasn’t too bad. There was barely anyone in it. No rush to get in no rush to get out. Not bad at all. I could travel like this everyday! Unfortunately this was just a strange aberration as I was to find out later.

We got off at Dadar. WTF! Holy shit. The number of people swarming this one was unbelievable! I was completely and thankful for KKK’s company. We went over to the harbour line and were to catch a train to Thane from there. A train was arriving and I was expecting myself to get on it without much inconvenience. I hate to admit it but there are very rare moments when I have been more wrong.

It was the fast local. Long before the train had slowed down there was a already clumps of bodies all over it that looked to be distinctly human. We turned and looked. The platform had becomes eerily empty. We didn’t even bother and walked over to the other side where the slower local was coming.

Right there saw a guy selling chana chat thing. I was hungry. It looked edible. So I bought some. KKK wanted some too so we asked him to make more. Suddenly out of nowhere the train decided to arrive so we hurried towards the train. There was some crowd but nothing compared to the last one.

So I confirmed with KKK that we will be taking this train and I hopped on to train and moved away from the entrance. Turned around to find the compartment full of strange faces and not even one familiar one. Wait a minute…..WTF! Where was KKK?

Looked out of the entrance and saw him standing on the platform. He yelled he will get on the next train. Right. That was some relief. So I found myself in a train compartment full of strangers with my D2 plugged in to my ears and holding chana in one hand and my phone in other.

And just like that all eyes were upon me. The looks I got would have put a hungarian hooker to shame. I wouldn’t have minded it if it wasn’t for the fact that every single of these was coming from men. That gave me the heebijeebies. Needless to say I spent rest of the trip staring out of the compartment.

It took forever but Thane did come and I managed to get off the train unmolested. Waited for KKK to arrive. Narrated my horror story and he laughed. He said this was nothing and I should try and crowded train on my way back.

Obviously I returned by Bus 😛

PS: Now i go back every day in train but I leave office so late so it actually is quite convenient and saves loads of time which I never manage to spend sleeping.