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I wrote this in MS Word as soon as I got home... feel kind of better now.

Today was a day of vishes dheemi (special slow) locals. Just now, the newsband on NDTV reads that irate commuters have stopped the trains in Thane, and now no trains are commuting beyond thane towards Kalyan. The situation was as chaotic in the morning. People are finally venturing out properly again, but the trains cannot handle it.
I usually travel by hanging out of the train. Once, in a fast local I had to catch to reach college in time, there was such a rush that I pushed myself in after the guy hanging out had settled, so I was on the train with one foot on the board, and one hand clutching something in the innards of the train, the other hand clutching the runner along the top of the compartment, and the other foot hanging over nothing. That was the case today, but the crowd was sufficient to push me further into the train, so that I was comfortably hanging out. I traveled like this, in a pretty secure position from Thane to Mulund. In Mulund, this guy climbed on, and I will never forget his face. He climbed on with one foot and one hand, along with another fellow with this huge bag. The fellow with the huge bag was finding it extremely uncomfortable to maneuver the bag and balance himself, so I took the bag from him, which he was reluctant to hand over, but seeing that the train started, and that he was in a really precarious position, he had no choice. A third man climbed in between them. So there were seven people hanging out of the door, and the ones in the immediate vicinity were the calm pink shirt young guy, the blue shirt man, and striped shirt boy with big bag which was in my hands.
The pink shirt fellow is the one to note. I thought he was a daredevil, but now I realize he was just inexperienced. He was staying with the train with one hand and one foot, and was putting all the pressure on his hand, instead of the foot. After Kanjurmarg, and before Vikhroli, he tried to adjust his position, and I looked around at him, and tried to push inwards to give him more room. He made a weird movement with his hands, I cannot understand the purpose of it, and right in front of my eyes, with his body barely two inches away from me, he suddenly fell off. It happened very quickly in a blur of pink and light brown. He did not even utter a sound, and I heard no sound later on. In fact, I was the first to notice, two seconds later, the other people started shouting. Grey shirt guy moved into his place. Five seconds later, people were dealing with it by laughing, cracking jokes, and the gray shirt guy proclaimed ”vachla” (he survived), though there was absolutely no way of knowing this for sure, considering the fact that he wasn’t noticed till two seconds after it happened. I don’t know if this is the spirit of Mumbai, or it was the only way to deal with it, without everyone’s moods being spoilt. Striped shirt boy started squirming his way into the train, when what happened eventually hit him. He lost his cool. He started breathing heavily, sweating profusely, and soon became the butt of many really bad jokes that everyone found very funny like “abbe woh to ud gaya, mujhe be uske peeche bechna chahta hai kya?” (That fellow flew away, are you intending to send me behind him?). this from the grey shirt guy. One old man began to chant something.
About me, I was in absolute shock. I don’t deny that I didn’t laugh at the jokes. Like everyone else, my laughter was false and was unnecessarily loud, but I had no clue what else to do. I was properly shaken. There was this huge crowd in Ghatkoper. I almost lost my specs here, because some guy displaced it while rushing inside. I saved my specs by holding onto them with my teeth. Striped shirt went all the way inside, taking his bag from me. Some fellow came and took the place of pink shirt, in the exact same position. No one told him what had happened.
Close to Sion, I had to get down, so although I was at the door, I had to make sure that no one was in front of me who didn’t want to get off. So I maneuvered myself towards the outside (of the mass of people) and only after a couple of seconds did I realize that I was standing in the position of pink shirt.
I could sit only one lecture of college. Everyone in college were telling the various adventures of themselves and their families, and everyone was excited that college had finally begun again. People began to cheer when I went in, and I had to stand up mid way into the lecture and talk about the media coverage of the rains. I could handle only one lecture. I was so depressed that I bunked the rest of the college, cancelled plans of a birthday treat of a very close friend, and he was really angry with him, but I definitely could NOT go to a BIRTHDAY party in such a state. Instead I headed over to BCL to get the matter out of my mind, and work on some projects at the same time. The trains were as crowded when I went to Sion station. It was complete mayhem now, because trains were coming on random tracks, people were crossing them indiscriminately, and for some reason, I was one of them. I wisely let two trains pass before getting into the third one. I found loads of info in the library, and came home, taking a small detour to buy some CDs. I was taken to the adda of pirated CDs, and perhaps I could have given a more colorful write-up of the whole thing if it were not for the death. There were many people and so many CDs in different boxes that I just freaked out. I got three and paid for two. Now I am going to try out Rhino, artcam and studio plus… not in the mood to blog about anything else as yet. Maybe I will read something on the net… I cannot even tell my parents about this, or they’ll freak out, especially my mother.
I am still thinking about it. About what his family will be going through right now, what he must have thought just before he died. I just saw concentration in his eyes in the last few moments, nothing else. I used to think I was never afraid of death. Maybe I am still not afraid of death itself, but of all the things surrounding it. I never reacted much when either of my grandparents died. I certainly didn’t feel this bad. Do you feel more bad about death with age? Or was it just that someone died in front of me? Or did the unnatural death trigger some in-built terror mechanism, which meant that I had to be more careful? I have no clue. I am just so entirely unhinged right now because he died. I looked it up. 330 die every month while travelling in the locals. So thats 11 a day. there are 11 other people like him today. Damn. And that's 11 everyday of the year. I can even remember his last words. Oh shit! Someone just told ME his last words. I just realized this, while writing. Damn. They were “Thoda andar jaana boss” (Shift a little on the inside, boss). I managed to oblige, somehow, but all the breath was driven out of my lungs by the guy pressed up against me. From one quarter, he managed to keep two thirds of his shoes inside.
My strategy is to forget about it.
I guess I will just go work on the project.