Train Training

(A hitchhiker's guide to the 'local' galaxy)

It is a science
To climb
This shrieking
Rumbling monster
From whose ribs
Protrudes a semi-solid mass
Of humanity.
Flowing in and out
A dynamic equilibrium
And always full to the brim.

Grab the handrail
Or someone’s shirt-tail
And loosen your limbs
Remember your swimming lessons?
Don’t fight the tide
Let it carry you in
With a smooth fluid upthrust,
Then relax
But stay put
Steeled
Before you are crushed
Into an unrecognizable pulp
By elbows, knees and hips
Poking out of super-tight pants,
And embalmed in face
By pungent-smelling hairgels.

Smile
When your rib-neighbour
Adjusts his midsection
To fart on your thighs.
When your shoulder-brother
(Whose face always remains unknown)
Lets a paan-infested yawn
In your ears.
Keep smiling
While you worm your legs
Towards a strategic stance
Next to the old Parsee uncle
Who’s about to get up.

Now… Sit!
Smile again
At the crotch-scratcher
Who has just lost to you
In this crazy round of musical chairs
And at the maulvi-saheb
Who’s chanting on his rosary
In the next seat.

Keep grinning
Whenever people get up
Or Sit down
Or sway like pendulums
Across your face.
Give the young boy a chance
To spread his homework
on your knees.

But scowl
At the boisterous cricket-team
Who hail ‘sivaji maharaj’
With every jerk of the wheels.
Brush off samosa crumbs
Off your head
After staring hard
At the fat clerk who dropped them.

Doze off
If you can
Lulled by the incessant hum
Of men and machine –
Life compressed
Like sardine in a red tin.
Remind your neighbour
To wake you up
Before your stop.

Check your possessions
Then your position
Remember your swimming lessons?
Relax your body
Let the tide push you out
Much before the monster grinds to a halt,
On your mini runway
To kill the inertia.
Smile again,
When you collide
Recoil
And recover your footing.

You’ll be okay.
Andheri to Churchgate
Is not a war.

It is a friendly chase.