Caterpillar, the saviour.!!!

Exploring the years I spent in Mumbai is something that I love to do and always like to write about it. This one was not preplanned but while doing so saddened by the current events and things happening in Mumbai. It seems that since 1993 it is a routine for the city, once again terror returned to the city that took away several lives. These man made disasters are tagged and will remembered with the dates tag, like  12/3, 9/11, 26/11 or 13/7. Surviving one after another such things and then trying to move on like walking through a double edges knife. It is the affected families are the loser but who knows tomorrow may be I will be one of them.

It is a nostalgic journey to my memory lane. As world grows closer and time is specious, if money is no factor then it is worth buy time. Did I say buy time? Stupid thing to say at least if my grandmother was around, she would have been said so. My granny always said, time never waited for anyone and it is priceless yet I am talking about buying time. Yes, it is possible.  Now these days when we are traveling, we preferred to fly out and in instead of using our age-old facilities I mean trains.  Whenever my pocket gave me the choice I too  follow the same but at the same time I agree that a train ride still is a thing that close to my heart.

Going back to my early days when we were traveling to Jamshedpur on every vacation. Those rides were no less than a nostalgic. With the times good or bad both that included to the service, the Indian Railways, world largest corporation is standout.

Luck favoured me big way, for twenty-four years I had a second family on the wheel, it was ride that took me back and forth between my workplace and my house in Mumbai. Yes, I considered to be lucky because I traveled in a local trains in Mumbai, I enjoyed every bit of that nostalgic rides. Enjoyed it? No, not always. There were numerous moments, I was irritated, angry and often fumed with an instant rage, but equation is 85:15.

My first ride was from Dadar to Vikhroli and then my long association started with it. In the beginning when I took my first Railway pass, it was covering both Western and Central Railways. I was having Vikhroli-V.T.-ChurchGate via Dadar and the cost was twelve Rupees and fifty paisa. With that, you can roam all over Mumbai everyday and as many times as you want. A ride often soothes the people in distress, I knew, a woman who then lost her job and she was going through some personal problem, during that period everyday she traveled from her home to V.T. and took same train to get back, it worked as stress buster for her. In the beginning I was very novice and may be for a couple of days, by mistake, I traveled in a Gents Compartment but my experience was not very bad, particularly those two days the compartment was not crowded. Then slowly and steadily, I became a champion, catching a running train and then jumping out of it before it touches the platform, it was just a cakewalk for me. My years of experiences had to face an acid test when I moved to Dombi (Dombivli). I discovered that I was yet to learn a lot and my skill was not enough. Gosh, women of Dombivili are the champions of its kind. They are incomparable, I don’t have enough word to express their capabilities, nobody will imagine it, if not seen.

Two trains that I traveled, one from Dombivli to my work and another for returning, those rides left loads of happy memories. In the morning, 9.45, Ambarnath-Dadar and in the evening it was 7.35 V.T. to Kalyan, both were my second home. Specially in the evening we used rush back to the station to get the train with renewed zest, a hard day in the office never prevented us from having a blast while returning home. It was twelve-car train and then there were a few twelve-car trains apart from that one.

Today, I hardly have travel, to reach my work place and I prefer a walk, yet I miss that my sweet-sour-bitter relation with trains and the train rides.

!!!Thanks Caterpillar, all those joy rides and carrying but not crashing!!!