Mostly enjoyable but a couple of days in a year could be very harsh!
Water logging on railway tracks during heavy rain especially when there is high tide, railway tracks will be under water, no running trains, no electricity for many hours!😟
All the hell breaks out when the office time gets over! Crowd heaps in at railway stations, everything edible gets over in a split of a second, after sometime, even nearby hotel rooms get over booked!
A couple of times in my 8 years at Mumbai erstwhile Bombay, when I was working for IDBI, IDBI Tower, Cuffe Parade as Manager IT, I had to walk on the railway tracks during these heavy rain, kilometres together to reach home at Malad (W), at dark hours, taking huge risk of falling into waterfilled potholes!😒
But then you will realize that you are not alone! but accompanied by thousands mostly in a row on the railway track, one just relaying on the other at the front, like ants going in a row, like a slow moving queue…Its likely to shift the path a little and continue walking, even when the one at the front just vanishes in a pothole! That’s Mumbai!
On one occasion I had to stay at my colleague friend’s place at Malad (E) as his quarters was near by the station compared to mine, since there was no bus service from Malad railway station to Jankalyan Nagar where I was given the quarters by IDBI. Since there was no mobile or at least not common then (1991-1998 was my era at IDBI) could not even easily communicate to my wife at home. unless from an open STD booth (extinct now!)
But most of the time very cooperative and helping crowd indeed! especially like in certain circumstances…when a pickpocket gets caught and gets tied up on a pole, each and everyone going by side, may slap him! because most of those might have got robbed by those sometimes in the past and they could not do anything… that’s Mumbaikars.😀
In fact, such behaviour of the crowd, though helpless in stopping pickpocketing but helps women walk freely alone at any odd hours, anywhere, especially in trains and platforms and connecting buses! Such is the nature of crowd in that cosmopolitan amazing wonder city!
आमची मुंबई ! (Amchi Mumbai !)
Not sure if I can survive those crowds now at local trains, which I could easily jump into the same train (In the morning always by 8.08 Malad local), same compartment, same row of seats, where my unknown friends will be reserving a seat for me as I join them to play cards, when from the next compartment one could listen to the bhajans sung by those bhajan gangs in full throat, throughout until Church Gate!
About my work place, IDBI, I will share something from my memories later..
AInickal 