Last weekend, I had been on my way to my aunt’s place for lunch in Kalyan. Having already been late (Getting up at 10am couldn’t make the journey any earlier !!), I was searching for some good valid reasons to explain my aunt for my delay.. And then .. as I was searching for reasons, the Reason came to me as the train stopped at Dombivli Stantion. After about minute or two, when the train refused to leave the station, being a true Mumbaikar, I started doing what we are pretty good at.. I blamed the governmental apathy and wondered when the civic authorities such as Railways would start giving importance to time of we poor civilians.. And as expected, the people around me were of similar kindda thoughts!! With the clock ticking past 1:30 pm, I was getting restless, but then there is no other choice.. Another 10 minutes passed and suddenly saw a group of policemen (Railway Police) barging into the compartments and asking all of us to get out of the train with our respective luggages.. Then they informed that they had received a telephone call stating a Bomb implanted in my train.. All got down in hurry.. But no unattended baggage found in my compartment …and later in any of the other 8 compartments either.. And so finally after 30 minutes of bomb-searching, the Police squad returned empty-handed.. and I resumed my remaining journey towards the lunch!!

All this made me wonder –
(1) Is the Railways/ Police / any such governmental agencies to be blamed for the delay? Apparently the answer is NO.. So let me publicly apologise for my outburst.. They were just doing their duty..
(2) But was the duty well performed?… I think so, because I was alive then to have my lunch and then am alive now to write this blog :-) But then, now I wonder, if I was the bomber sitting in the train with the bomb, I could have also got down with it while they checked the train and then boarded the train again since there was no frisking of the luggages
(3) But again.. Is such Frisking of each luggages/ bags of each passenger of each compartment in each train possible?? I can’t even imagine our plight in such a case. Just the sheer number of people traveling in the trains makes it an Impossible task to do that.. (Also thinking of my lunch, if they actually screened all bags then, I would have been home only for Dinner!!)
(4) So is the Mumbaikar lives Secured? Well, all of us know the answer is a NO… The dense varied population just getting more and more and the transport facilities are the same since ages.. The trains are already crowded with people leaving no other choice than traveling on rooftops and hanging on one finger and one toe on the footboard. Any one bad incident could take away precious lives. The only person standing between your living an extra day may be the bomber who allows you to live for one more day!!

Its really a sad state of affairs and it doesn’t seem to be getting any happier.. The Government is busy making plans for approving costs for new projects and then approving for increase in the budgets due to time delays.. The only thing constant here in Mumbai is “Spirit”.. Well that’s a strong word discovered by the politicians and hyped by the media for the lack of any choices.. Just because a bomb blasted in Ghatkopar, people cant avoid trains as they cannot afford the taxi-fares to office when they are running for earning their daily bread!!

That’s it for now.. I think that would be an abrupt ending .. but given this ‘interesting’ topic, this blog can extend to five-six pages!!! So I just sign off without any more ideas, more thoughts, more hopes, and lots of spirits!!

Bye