Pissed off commuters- A (mental) health & safety hazard

If you have ever been to Mumbai, you would know about it’s infamous local trains and in all likelihood, would have travelled on one too. If you have faced the challenge of travelling on a Virar Fast train, I salute you. Honestly, hats off to you guys.

But to those of you who are clueless as to what ‘challenge’ I speak of, I shall now proceed to explain. You see, unlike most trains, the local trains in Mumbai are not closed, i.e, they have no doors to hold the people in. And millions of people use them everyday. So it is not out of the normal to hear of freak accidents day in and day out- of people falling off the trains, people pushed onto the tracks, people getting runover,etc.

I mainly blame the behaviour of people riding these trains. Most of them always in a hurry- to get in first, or to get off first, in the process, becoming a walking-talking (and often yelling) hazard to others’ safety.

Just the other day, as I proceeded towards the train door, a lady with 5-6 big bags in her hand, kept pushing me towards the door, while my sister stood at the entrance. She kept yelling at me to move in front while ignoring the obvious fact that there was no space. I tried to keep my cool- I tried swearing under my breath, tried counting till ten, but this woman’s voice drowned out the one in my head. I swear, you could probably see the vein throbbing in my forehead.

As soon as the station came, I took my own sweet time to get off despite the lady yelling. I nearly shouted ‘shut it you *bleeping bleep*!’. But I realised that despite the horrendous bags scraping against the back of my legs, I could control myself to the extent of giving her a hideous glare.

But many have not been as lucky as me. Several have been pushed out of trains and have died due to dumbasses like these. And the saddest part is that many of the people are educated human beings who have a shocking lack of common sense and etiquette. They show behaviour worse than animals and due to these idiots, I often wonder why human beings are called ‘social, civilised and higher order thinking animals’.

Daily brawls, pushing, shoving, yelling- I wouldn’t be surprised if these people consider it some form of venting out frustrations.

And on another note, to the large people who have a habit of being loud and rude on public transport, kindly shut your traps about ‘having no space’, because everybody’s in the same boat here (rather bus/train compartment), or lose weight in the interest of your health as well as public welfare.

The Terrible Tale of La Cuckaracha

Cockroaches- very gross, highly revolting, rapidly breeding pests that I have hated for the past 15 years. I’m not swelling with pride when I say this, but I would definitely call myself ‘The Terminator’ when it comes to these disgusting insects. I must admit, there is a certain rush of adrenaline when you repeatedly smack the damn thing with a shoe till it’s guts spill out (yes, I’m guilty of overkill). Actually, a few years ago, I nearly said ‘asta la vista, baby’ (I think I had just watched my first Schwaznegger film then).

But anyhoo, what I’m telling you now is the story of the one that got away. The one that escaped the clutches of a potentially highly gruesome death.

It was a hot and humid night, the rain had just stopped. Cockroaches (which for the past 7 years, had gone into hiding), had begun invading the house frequently that month for some unknown reason. That night, a giant cockroach infiltrated my house. It was not just any cockroach, it was one of those humongous, disgusting ones, which fly around and love to land on people when they least expect it.

My elder sister, who is a person willing to punch the daylights out of anyone who dares to cross her path- was ironically the one shrieking and screaming the most. It was admittedly extremely hilarious to watch her run around the house like a lunatic.

Seeing such state of affairs, it was ultimately upto the maid and I to eliminate the damn creature. The search began with full preparation- me, armed with a slipper and a can of bug spray, and my maid, armed with a broom. After a lot of searching, we nearly gave up. That was until my grandmother (who was till then asleep), was suddenly awoken by a disturbing creepy crawly landing on her shoulder.

The hunting party, i.e, the maid and I, again leapt into action. We spotted ‘la cuckaracha’ on the kitchen stove. We decided to play smart and spray the stove from the inside and then shut it. But to our dismay, the plan was soon foiled as the monster crept out again, a few moments after shutting the lid. It took us by surprise with a new skipping-flying move which resulted in all of us (except grandma) screaming in horror and/or disgust.

Ultimately, the flying terror moved swiftly ahead of us and vanished into a dark corner. It was nowhere to be found. We prodded nooks and corners, sprayed under cupboards and tables, but alas, to no avail. The monster had escaped our clutches and was not seen again.

So for now, I am just hoping the stupid thing didn’t lay its eggs in some wall as part of some masterplan to take over the world.

What are the chances?

There are often things in our lives that we feel should never have occurred, their probability being nearly zero. But what we often don’t realise is that all these events still have that slim chance of occurrence. These ‘coincidences’ of everyday life also often go unnoticed, we brush them off casually to the side. But sometimes, when we look closely, we can’t help but feel that there is some pattern to this randomness, and at times like those, I feel that maybe, just maybe, there is a force out there, directing our lives without our knowledge, and sometimes against our will.

I can’t decide whether this randomness is supposed to be in the context of ‘whatever happens, it happens for the best’ or if it is supposed to remind us that ‘hey, don’t be so happy, you still don’t contril your life completely!’. But whatever the case may be, I still feel this randomness, this role of chance, is very important in our lives.

After all, it is chance that gives us that hope for a miracle. It is chance that stops life from being completely predictable. And it is chance that often makes us realise the important things in life, be it through unexpected tragedies or windfall gains.

I wish I could explain what I’m trying to say but I can’t find the right words. i have plenty of events in my life- some surprising, shocking even, while many others being mundane. But none of them can completely fit the bill. So I really hope you have grasped what I’m trying to say here.

I’m not a very good writer and topics like this are not easy for me to talk about, and so I often end up sounding ridiculously vague.

I’ll try being more fun and expressive in my next blog post.

Evolution of the technologically challenged

As dead as my wordpress blog has been, my lazy butt is not entirely to blame. Currently, my comp’s motherboard is dead and shows no sign of revival anytime soon. So I decided “Hey, why not use my so-called ‘business/smart phone’, to it’s main use?”. Of course there was one problem- I didn’t know how to. (Yes, I am a technological r-tard and I’m proud.)

After looking up WordPress and reading the Nokia E5 manual (about 5 times), I have figured it out! Well, almost. Kind of.

Anyhoo, so I’m quite proud of the fact that I am managing to type out this blog entry with my cell phone. I wanted to make this entry awesomely cool and image heavy, but I still haven’t figured out how to do that on my cell phone yet (which by the way, I have owned for the past 7 months).

I now bid thee all goodbye as I continue doing a dance to appease the Gods, so they may have mercy on me and heal my motherboard.

(Besides, I really miss my Wacom tablet, and Paintool SAI and a normal keyboard, and, and…*too overwhelmed with emotion to go on*)