I haven't really told this story to anyone. Something came to mind when I was going through old stuff I had written. I had journalled the first time I had travelled on a Mumbai Local, to my cousins' house in Santa Cruz.
Only, it wasn't.
That was around 5th or 6th standard I think. I absolutely hated Marathi tutions. It was a few months after visiting an Ashram in Melekote. I stole my mother's coin purse, a loaf of bread, a bottle of water, and set off with a plan to run away from home and go live in the Ashram. I took a bus to Thane station, purchased a ticket and went and sat in the compartment. It was a small piece of pink card. A kind uncle asked me if I was travelling on that ticket. I said yes. He said that it was a second class ticket. So I went to the second class, found a seat, and went all the way to VT.
I was looking around for the Express train to Bengaluru, and found out that it would only come the next morning after asking around. I contemplated spending the night in a train that had come into the station, and had all its lights turned off. I was just walking around wVT. There, something really scary happened. A short guy with specs, but who looked decently dressed came up to me, asked me if I was lost, and then urged me to go with him. I said no, and got scared. Then I just got in a train back to Thane.
It was late at night, I took a bus to Pawar Nagar and was walking home around 11:30. Then some neighbourhood aunty found me, grabbed me by the hand and took me home. They were saying it was some maternal instinct that had made her find me.
I never told anyone where I went, or what happened. I had a doctor's check-up. People were looking for me in cars, during the time I was missing. The principal told students not to run away in the assembly the next day. There were rumours that I was abducted by aliens in Siddachal.
Lol.
Not aliens, but almost, maybe, by a creepy short man in rounded spectacles.
So that was the first time I travelled alone in a Mumbai Local.
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