Column

A revolution is waiting to go on track in Bangalore, hopefully. The ‘metro rail revolution’, as one could call it, is set to be a rub-off from how local trains revolutionised life in Mumbai. As business spread in Mumbai, the local trains played a pivotal role as the backbone of transportation infrastructure. The Bangalore metro rail, expected to play a similar role here, may be late in coming, but it would be a case of ‘better late than never’ when the first service rolls along the tracks.

Like a bitter pill, which has to be swallowed, the metro rail may positively affect the city’s way of looking at life in ways that we probably have never so far imagined. More so, it will change the attitudes of people who will be addicted to it, like the lakhs who are dependent on local trains in Mumbai.

Mumbai’s local trains played an active role in why Mumbaikars are more punctual — a thing evidently lacking among Bangaloreans. The clockwork precision with which the local trains function has forced Mumbaikars to become adept at keeping time. A Mumbaikar dependent on the trains generally has a set group of friends or travelling companions, and their extra-curricular activities have become a way of life.

Mumbaikars are used to taking a train scheduled at a particular time, lest they miss their daily travelling partners. A minute late, and the train is gone, strange faces giving you company as you travel in solitude amid the travelling masses. It could be the 9.02 am local train, the 9.06 am one, or even 9.10 am. If one taking the 9.02 am local train every day ends up in the 9.06 am local instead, he has missed his regular group….and the fun of debates, bhajans, playing cards, or indulging in plain gossip. It’s basically a way out of the robotic life that Mumbai has forced on its denizens. But it has made the Mumbaikar a punctual creature, whether he himself likes it or not.

The fear of turning up late at the station and missing the daily excitement of the extra-curricular travelling activities with friends, to and from work, forces the Mumbaikar to be on time. Surely, the thought of reaching the workplace on time may be secondary. But once he is on the train with his group, he inevitably reaches work on time.

Not to forget, the breaking down of class consciousness, as an executive rubs shoulders with a labourer as he travels unmindful of what caste or community the other belongs to. The only class one becomes conscious of is ‘I Class’ or ‘II Class’, the compartments in which he or she travels. But will this happen in Bangalore? Only time will tell. But let’s remain hopeful anyway.