The Ladies’ Special

I had sent a silent thank you to the person. The same person; who was now screamed and glared at by every other person in the compartment. Mumbai. The city pushes you to the edge almost as often as you breathe. Here in this local train we were literally and figuratively pushed to the edge.

Every day a Ladies Special train packs the women of this city and dispatches them all to their desired destinations. Mumbai depends on this one locomotive wholly and solely. The day this train resigns, Mumbai will be faced with a debacle quite unfathomable in size and scale.

The train played its trick today.. It ran at a slower pace and failed to reach this station on time. The crowd grew in volume, making me nervous. Nervous, not because some business empire would come down like a pack of cards because I couldn’t make it to office in time. Unlike other locals who are born thinking that the only way of life is to live happily ever after with this mob in the backdrop all the time, mob puts me off.. makes me feel nervous.

I wanted to back off as the crowd in its routine way stepped a step closer to the platform edge. I knew what this action meant by heart. The train was coming.. finally. There were voices in my head telling me that it would sound preposterous to call up my boss and tell him that I would not be swiping my card today because the mob puts me off. Any self-respecting Mumbaikar would like to keep this ‘ mob psyches me’ secret to herself.

So like everyday, I decided to give it a try.. One wave of women made its way to the compartment shore, followed by the next and the next. I was still on the platform. Only when the train almost gave up on me, I managed to get my feet aboard. My mind was sending its usual silent SOS messages, without my consciousness approving of them even once. I needed some breathing space..

Beta .. idhar khade raho. Faster than the speed of light I pushed my way to the space shown to me by this godsent stranger. I knew the voice had sounded a little too coarse to be any woman’s. And, in that split second, the one glimpse at this face had revealed its identity to me. This person had taken a wrong train. Maybe..

I stood next to the stranger. My shoulder was touching the stranger’s shoulder. But, I could breathe. Though the voice and the face had the same rugged quality about it, very much like my other counterpart who once taught me that a woman should by accident or choice never step in the other compartment, this voice had given me some breathing space.

Then the voices were raised. My fellow travelers were trying to keep their distance from this person, but it was impossible to find enough space. The train’s uniqueness was brought to everyone’s notice. The woman-like attire was not enough of an explanation to travel in the Ladies Special.

They were two of them. The one who had helped me and the other I couldn’t see. But knew was there.. There was this strong something smelling like alcohol.. I knew too well that it wasn’t any fragrance brand. Yet, I reserved my thank you for the stranger. Of all my journeys in the Ladies Special, this was the only journey where someone actually allowed me the much needed space to breath.