I love the city of dreams, Mumbai. I love Mumbaikars, I love Local Trains, I love Vada Pavs, I love the traffic of Mumbai, I love the crowd of local train. I love the imperfections of the city.
May be I am so much in love with Mumbai because the city challenges my beliefs every now and then.
I find inspiration in small things that often go unnoticed.
Last October, It was during Durga Puja, when I jumped in one of the bogie of a local train and was surprised to see it decorated with colorful papers. The simplicity of the decoration made me nostalgic. I felt that I have come to my old classroom that we used to decorate on Teacher's Day. It had been 3 years in Mumbai and I had never seen something like that in Local Train. So, I asked my colleague about it.
He told that since we don't use Local train often so we don't know about it. But, he got to know that the train has been decorated by people who truly consider Mumbai Local as their lifeline.
There are people who wake up and takes the first train in the morning and would commute for 5-6 hours in a day. They stay at places that are more than 100 Kms from their workplaces.
They spend substantial time in local trains and hence they decorate it during festivals like Durga Puja. It even had photo of Goddess Durga and some people had worshipped it as we can see that from the photo.
How can people be so cheerful even when they face so much hardship in life. People crave for adventure. For a Mumbaikar, getting on a local train and getting down is no less adventurous.
I told about this incident to my Dad's Friend who told that " Durga Puja is famous in West Bengal, Bihar, UP, etc"
It was a jaw dropping moment for my Dad and his friend as they were mesmerized by this as we have never done anything like this in their life. Neither we have even heard someone celebrating festivals like this in a train.
The Uncle told me, " Thank you dear for sharing about it"
Those people are unknown who decorate the trains but they are the real heroes among us who keep doing their work without complaining about the hardship of their lives. Respect! Aamchi Mumbai ( My Mumbai)
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