Mumbai's Lifeline

The prime business areas and major offices of both government and private institutions are all located in South Mumbai and the working population reside in areas quite far away from here, in the "suburbs" of Mumbai. Around 6.5 million residents of Mumbai travel to work using the local trains and this is the daily average & so it is no wonder that the Mumbai Suburban Railways have the highest passenger density in the world. Due to the ever increasing population and the influx of people from all over the country who come to Mumbai to realise their dreams, the local trains have to cater to the transport needs of all these people. A 9 cubicle (or car or bogie) train which is supposed to carry about 1700 passengers is forced to carry 4700 passengers during peak hours. People working in banks, private shops, corporate offices, government agencies, schools, colleges, Bollywood film industry, factories, workshops, garages, hotels, restaurants and many others rely heavily on the local trains and if the trains stop working even for a few hours, life in Mumbai virtually comes to a standstill and leads to chaos, confusion, anger, frustration, stress and sometimes it can also turn into a violent situation. It is therefore only apt to call the Mumbai local trains as Mumbai's lifeline.

And when I landed in Mumbai and started working, I found out more about the local trains. They have a culture of their own. The jam packed cubicles, the heat, the sweat, the clamour, those everyday fights to catch seats, getting in, being vomited out, struggling for that wee bit of extra leg space and elbow room.

There are so many things which are unique about Mumbai local trains.The rakes are designed to seat three people per unit bench installed. However, the brotherhood of Mumbaikars has an undying spirit and has given way to the ‘Fourth-seat’ concept, specifically in the second-class compartments. It is an unwritten law that the people who are lucky to get a seat during the journey will squeeze themselves and allow the fourth person to perch at least 25% of his bottom on the seat. Sadly this fourth-seat concept is yet to penetrate the stiff upper lip culture of the first class compartments.

A large populace of women in Mumbai work, a majority of them out of sheer compulsion as one earning member is not sufficient to support the family. And one has to really appreciate their planning and multi tasking skills. Some ladies actually start preparing the ingredients for the evening dinner by cutting the vegetables in the trains!

Some long distance commuters have formed "Bhajan Mandalis" or "Devotional songs Friend Circles". Equipped with the deity's framed picture, cymbals and their own voices, these groups sing away to glory trying to forget their stressful lives by immersing themselves in the bhajans. Their cacophony also results in passing on the stress to some fellow commuters who are trying to sleep or talk on their mobile phones.

Thanks to the technology boom, more and more commuters are entertaining themselves by listening to their favourite music on their pocket sized MP3 players and some even watch and listen to songs on their small mobile phone screens. Some read books, some solve crossword puzzles, some talk on their mobile phones, some sleep, some just observe others and some are lost in their thoughts, but all have one thing in common, all want to get the hell out of the train and are just waiting for their destination to come.

Moogat

Prof. Moogat was of slight build, with eyes that sparkled behind his dark rimmed glasses and his iconic French beard that was always well trimmed. He had a good voice and would modulate the same, whispering, squeaking, hollering, yelling and even shrieking to the top of his voice at times. It was his endeavor to make the subject of mathematics extremely interesting for the students and that is why he would sing and dance, and liberally pepper his words with highly explosive expletives, thereby drawing his students to his lectures in droves like moths to the flame. It was common knowledge that a number of students from the various other colleges in Pune would sneak into the class room occupying every inch of space, even on window sills, in order to lend a ear to his ranting. I have never seen a teacher teach a subject with so much passion, drama and enthusiasm. Despite his unorthodox and innovative teaching methods, Prof. Moogat carved a niche for himself in the rarefied sphere of teaching, with the hundreds of students moving on through the shoals of time to all corners of the globe.

Ask any of his students to speak about him and you will find that their words will echo sincere feelings of love and gratitude for him, giving an insight into the lifetime bonding that has been forged between a teacher and his pupils. He always referred to himself as a 'mad bawa', in true Parsi humourous style and would never hesitate to have a dig at his own eccentric mannerisms. ''Don't think I am mad, I am MAD'' would be his vociferous expression always. That year, Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India, and he would coolly say ''You know boys, our PM is an MP'', and when none of us could decipher what was the joke in that, he would explain that MP meant Mad Parsi. Let me narrate a story that he told once. There is a big square shaped land and at the centre is a pot of gold. At the four corners are Superman, Batman, Shaana Parsi & Yeda Parsi. Who will get the gold first? Answer - Yeda Parsi, because the other 3 characters are fictitious!

Also, those days, I remember, the comparisons and I dare say direct competition was very much on the cards (like a cold war) between the Moogatians (i.e. boys who had joined Moogat's private tuitions for Maths) and those who hadn’t or rather were unable to. For some unknown reason, Moogat had decided to start with some portion ahead of what was being taught in school, and so there was a mismatch between what Moogat taught and what we were taught at school by Mr. Shankar Narayan. This led to all sorts of problems and I think in the 1st Unit Test (or was it mid term exams -I’m not sure), most of the Moogatians did not score so well, thereby giving a chance for Non – Moogatians to ridicule at them. Both of them had significantly different methods to arrive at the same answers, the Moogat method being obviously more profound and dramatic – just like his personality and Shankarnarayan’s being cool just like he was. Let me tell you how Moogat taught us to solve matrices – R1 minus R2, R2 minus R3, Lalalee…lalalee…lalalee. Even after 25 years one still remembers the formulas- he had that kind of influence and impact on his students.

He would become emotional and sentimental at times and talk about the rat race for the marks in the S.S.C, and H.S.C. examinations. He considered the educational system and parents responsible at times for pressurizing the young ones to perform beyond their capacities, thus leading to failure or even suicides. Peer and parental pressures, in this world of stiff competition can sound the death knell to sensitive and young minds, he would say. Indeed, those days a debacle in the 12th standard would spell doom; for the aspirant dreaming of getting a seat in an engineering or medical college. In my opinion, even to this day there is still a fixation in the psyche of the majority of our students who only opt for the engineering or medical professions, even if it means having to cough up hefty sums of money for college admissions. One cannot fathom this trend why other professions like the Armed Forces, Merchant Navy, Hotel Management, Architecture, Interior Decoration, Journalism, Law, Financial Accounting or even the high flying civil services fail to attract our young men. This would become an exclusive topic for a blog that I will write some other day.

Prof. Moogat later on became the principal of Nowrosjee Wadia College, the same college where he taught Maths but I am sure he was uncomfortable for his first love would always have been teaching Mathematics.

Blogging is serious business...

So, thanks to my younger brother, I have got kick started into the world of blogging. This being my first blog, I was wondering what I should write about. The easiest thing to write about is your own self, and so I will attempt to do it.

Will I be candid or will I be economical with the truth?

To reveal or not to reveal.....that is the question..

So my next blog should be about ''The Early Years'', now doesn't this title sound like a familiar opening chapter from some classic English novel?