5.41 CST fast

Watching the net work of the local railway lines from the masjid bridge gives u the feel, yes it really is the life line of Mumbai. The trains look bulged out, as is the people on board the train are hanging on to their dear lives and have in the process managed to pull the ceiling of the train down, there are people hanging from all the doorways and believe it or not, there are people atop the trains, bending their head down every now and then to avoid the overhead electical connections, I was a regular commuter of this so called life line for years, it was like my second home, made some friends there with whom I have bonded better than my colleagues and must admit, am closer with them than my own siblings...we spoke about everything under the sun with no qualms whatsoever, the bonding I think came from lack of professional jealousy...many a times I would shell peas for my friend who had to go home and rush into the kitchen, her inlaws wanted to have food made by her only, not the ones made by the cook...or help another friend to knit the sweater she was making for her neighbours kid...we were like one big family and now when I sometimes make a trip just to be with them since I am not a regular commuter anymore, the welcome I get is to be seen to be believed...
These so called life lines are sometimes also veritable death traps. I have often has the misfortune of seeing badly mutilated dead bodies lying under the overhead bridge on strechers, waiting to be taken to the morgue, the thin cloth that covered them leaving little to the imagination of the onlooker as to the ghastly sight of his wounds...one incident was really tragic, I saw this man hanging at the door way, jumping down everytime the train halted at a station and then running back into the moving train at the nick of time, his luck however ran out, his limp lifeless body got down with me at GTB nagar, 4 men carried him on a strecher to the Sion hospital. his left leg dangling at a queer angle form the shin where it had broken.
My personal experience of near brush with death have been many, but the one that put a chill into me was when I was thrown out of the train along with a group of young college going girls, I was lucky to have had external injuries only, my two other companions were not so lucky, one fell into the track, between the train and the platform, and the other had a serious head injury, both did not survive the fall...
the announcement floated across...5.41, CST fast is soon to arrive on pltform number 7, I moved towards the door of the ladies first class, getting ready to jump into the running train...need to reach home fast, Pablo is waiting for me....do we really learn from our experiences???