Lindsay Pereira: Hit the streets, learn a lesson

The Tejas Express luxury train leaves for its first return journey between Goa and Mumbai at the Karmali railway station. The train boasts of wifi. Pic/AFP

It's hard being a student in Bombay. I suppose one can remove the word 'student' and replace it with just about any person belonging to any age group and that sentence would still ring true, but I feel for students a lot more, because I remember how difficult it was for me to be one. This isn't a reference to students in school, although all parents know what a nightmare the admission process is, and how inspirational teachers are a rarity, and why the notion of safety is laughable unless you drive your child to school and back. This isn't about the curriculum either, designed as it is to suck the joy out of learning at every possible stage. I was thinking, in this instance, specifically about college-going students.

I thought about them a lot over the past couple of days, after spotting a group of them desperately trying to enter a train on the Western Railway line at 9 am. One finally managed to board the train, after four attempts, but I had to leave the rest to their predicament as I eventually walked away from the chaotic scene.

It's been decades since I last travelled to college, which I used to do daily by commuting from one end of the city to the other. I had to do that because, contrary to what the government of Maharashtra would like you to believe, the number of good colleges in Bombay can be counted on one hand, with a few fingers to spare. And so, because I was not the son of a politician or movie star, and was, therefore, compelled to take education seriously, I travelled for a couple of hours daily for years. I'm not sure I'd manage to pull that off if I were in college today, simply because commuting is impossible for anyone who isn't prepared to take a physical beating. The young and old don't stand a chance in an environment where even the act of getting onto a bus or train, let alone spending time on either one, is fraught with all kinds of dangers.

Non-Bombayites may never fully understand the horrifying implications of what 'super dense crush load' means. It sounds like a power that could be deployed in an X-Men movie, but actually refers to the fact that, during rush hour, our local trains accommodate around 16 people per square metre on a train, excluding the ones hanging out for dear life on either side of the exits. To put it into perspective, what this means is that for anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour, you have every inch of your body in contact with inches of flesh that belong to a bunch of other people. Consider being unable to move, being forced to stare at an extended elbow or an unwashed armpit, or meditating to ignore an itch at the back of your waist as you wait for a breath of fresh air. Imagine being forced to do this daily before heading to class, and think about how an experience so undeniably scarring can affect your ability to learn something from a lecture.

Media reports from earlier this week spoke of the Western Railway considering the introduction of 15-coach rakes in the slow Andheri-Virar corridor after extending platforms. One would assume that even something as simple as punctuality would make a difference to commuting, but why fix something when one can create a whole new set of problems? The new rakes and longer platforms may never appear in our lifetime, because everyone who lives in Bombay knows how seriously the railways always take the completion of any much-publicised project.

In January 2015, for instance, a massive multi-crore station improvement project was announced, involving 10 stations on the Western line, eight on the Central, and two on the Harbour line. They were to be seamlessly connected to other public transport options, offer commuters more platform space and better facilities, and a bunch of other things that always look good on Powerpoint presentations. Think about those promises the next time you step onto an 'improved' platform.

Meanwhile, railway managers are supposedly experimenting with air-conditioned trains. Let's see how they manage to shut those doors when they roll in.

Maybe we are heading towards a future where students will simply study online, ignoring the need to commute. Or, given the slow pace at which education reforms and impr­ovements to infrastructure take place, many will avoid higher education entirely, opting instead to try and become Bollywood stars, cricketers or politicians.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com