A minor issue

I had one of ‘those’ arguments with a friend (let’s call him X) yesterday. The kind that I’ve had with myself an umpteen number of times, and in which somehow or another I am not able to defend my stand convincingly, not even with myself.
So here’s how it started. We are on our way back home and take the local train. We decide to stand near the door. The train starts, gives a jerk and starts again to pick up speed. The whole thing is over in a matter of seconds, but for us it is the beginning of a conversation that lasts for most of the 20minute journey.
The jerky start reminded me of a thought I had sometime ago on a similar journey, when I was forced to travel during rush hour. Rush hour traveling in local trains in Mumbai is a nightmare, especially for someone not used to it. Apart from the obvious discomfort of traveling in a train packed beyond capacity, there are the unwritten rules and etiquettes of train travel that separate you from the regular crowd, so that to the seasoned eye you stand out like a sore thumb. I have stopped trying to fight this, I no longer try to blend in. I am an outsider and refuse to be apologetic about it. But that’s a subject for another post.
So on this particular occasion, I was standing near the window, in the space between the seats. This is the best place to be if you are traveling a long distance, because you can stand in one place, and nobody asks you to move right or left or further, and you don’t get jostled around when people behind you try to make their way to the door. However the problem with standing here is that there are no overhead handles to hold on to. So you end up holding onto the grill in the window or maintain balance with a hand flat against the wall. But mostly, and especially if you have a reasonable sense of balance, you end up standing with your feet a little apart. This is what aggravated my problem that day.
What was my problem? My problem was the jerky start. Every time the train started from a station, it started with a jerk and then at least one more before it began a smooth pick up. I might have noticed this before but it stayed at the back of my mind. On that day however, I was forced to think about it at length, because of how I felt every one of those jerks in my knees. On that day, given that I was traveling from Borivali to Churchgate and there are 19 stations along the way, that’s a good 19 times in the space of about an hour. I’m not saying that I have bad knees, or that the jerks were so bad that my knees started hurting. I’m just wondering about the men and women who do this every single day.
Local train is the lifeline of the city of Mumbai, its chief and most convenient mode of transport. I am definitely a fan, and that has as much to do with the efficiency with which it is run, as it is to do with my leaning towards public transport in general. Every day millions of people travel by local trains, to work and back. And they do this for years on end, possibly all their lives. And given how crowded trains are at rush hour, there are about twice or more, people standing as there are sitting. Imagine the number of jerks, however small, an average pair of knees goes through in a day, and then a week, month, year and so on. I’m no expert, but I would imagine it would be doing some amount of damage, especially as one grows older.
How difficult can it be to start a train more smoothly, to be more careful, in the interest of all those passengers? I have a feeling it’s not impossible, it’s just that the drivers have not thought about the damage they might be doing. It’s a matter of expertise for sure, but it’s not an expertise that cannot be developed. It’s just that nobody has pointed out to them that they need to develop it.
And that brought me to my next observation, how is it that something like this has not been looked into? Or has it been, and I don’t know about it, in which case I stand corrected. But of all issues that I have read about concerning public transport in the city, and specifically local trains, while the quality of travel has been discussed, and new trains are being designed, this particular concern has never even been voiced, let alone addressed. Is it that nobody has noticed? Is it that nobody has noticed because we have got accustomed to accepting things as they are, grateful if they are going even half right, and attempting to improve only after something goes drastically wrong? Is it something to do with our very attitude as Indians? Is it related in however indirect a way, to our complacency about all the deaths in accidents related to local trains? If human life can be of such little consequence, surely human comfort has no place in our minds and our busy schedules.
This was pretty much the argument offered by X. He asked me to look around me, at the people traveling with us. Did they care about a measly little jerk? Unlikely, I admit. The average Indian, and certainly the average Mumbaikar, has a thousand other things to worry about. Not to mention the fact that he is perfectly aware of how much worse it can be. After all almost everyone has traveled by State transport buses, on rural roads at some point or another in their lives. Compared to that, the local trains in Mumbai are sheer luxury.
And herein lies my confusion. I know X is right, but I believe, so am I. Just because things could be worse, are indeed, much worse in most of the country, should not mean that it is improved where there is scope for improvement with minimal effort. Just because the common man has learnt to accept his plight with such resignation, and for so long, that something like this doesn’t even occur to him anymore, should the experts continue to ignore these apparently minor issues?
Is the collective damage to millions of pairs of knees every day a minor issue, and thinking about how things can be made more comfortable for them, such a waste of time for officials and experts designing and running our public transport now and in the future?
Was it a waste of time to even have written this post?