Leave me Breathless!

No I am not going to talk about the song by the Corrs...though it happens to be a personal favourite. I am going to talk about my breath-taking as in take my breath away (literally) experiences in the local trains of Bombay.. yes I said BOMBAY!! .

It's a humid sticky morning in the cold month of November, and I am waiting with countless other ladies at the station platform near the First Class compartment. All eyes on the horizon waiting for the train to arrive. The moment we see it approach, we take our battle front stances. The only thing missing is war-paint on our faces and we don't need no weapons coz our bare hands, and elbows and buttocks(I'll get to these soon), are more than sufficient.

We have to take our offence positions coz we know that the steel monster thats on it's way is already packed with ladies from the previous stations and thus we have very little space to deal with and very little time to shove ourselves in that very little space.

The train arrives. The frenzy begins.If you are a spectator instead of a participant, its quite a sight. Women weighing 80 kgs and more defy the physical laws of gravity and jump in to the trains to secure themsleves and their big toushees ample space, and this while using the elbows and more effectively the buttocks to ward off, push down and obstruct other mortals that stand lower in the BMI scale.

If I, being one of those lower scale mortals, by any chance happen to secure a place for myself, its not a place, its a crevice. Its like being pushed against a wall behind a door that's open in front of your face...but ya you are sort of cushioned in between the buttocks of the lady in the front and the pot belly of the lady behind.

I hope you are picturing yourself standing like that in the train..take a minute to do that..and Guys, you have to think about other Men standing with you that way, not Women!.. Get the picture..did I hear Yuck? cool so you got it..

Taking this forward, the auntie standing behind me probably has a cold or summin which makes her cough. Now I would like to reiterate that there is not even a microscopic metre of space between us...and the lady Coughs.

I cannot begin to describe how yucky and horrible and disgusting that feeling is. And since I don want to feel those feelings, I try and move sideways to feel lesser of the cough-induced spasms of the stomach...but because there isnt a micsroscopic metre of space between us, the..the...stomach....the stomach also MOVES AS I MOVE!!!!!!  Like it's stuck to my back! aaarrrgghhhh!

I tell myself that its just a matter of another 15(!!) minutes and this will be over...yes that's how I try and calm myslef down coz breathing exercises don't work...because I cant Breathe! Its a miracle when I am pushed out of the train and take a breath of air and know that am still alive, though dishevelled and disoriented for a couple of minutes because I cant feel the buttocks and the stomach anymore...and can't believe it to be true coz it felt like I would never get off the train and will continue to be there for all eternity..

Those fifteen minutes are the longest 15 mins of the day, everyday. And I witness and experience a miracle everday too..when the 15 minutes of pain get over.

Looking on the bright side of all this trial and tribulation, this entire experience also becomes a rigorous mental and physical work-out session. Like this:

a. Being squeezed like I have described above, leads to flattening of my body so I don't need no VLCC for that flat stomach. (ya then you'll ask me what about the fat ladies, well I don't know, maybe they're born with it)
b. Holding the handles which are up in the air to try to save my spine and hands from getting crushed and twisted against the increasing pressure of the pot bellied ladies in the trains turns out to be stretching exercises.
c. The humidity and the lack of ventilation convert the compartment in to a temporary sauna room.
d. Making the mental resolve to board such trains everyday to go to work, helps me make quick decisions
e. It changes the definition of 'Intimacy' where two bodies are so close to each other that even air cannot pass through them...including flatulent air... which lingers..