Push Push, In the ... Rush...?

Sue me if you don't like the post title.

Here's a comment i made to a few Indians. "Love India. Love the people. But don't like all the pushing and shoving on the trains. Well ok, I kinda like it, but not everyday."

Yep, it's worse than Beijing. In rush hour you won't catch your train if you don't get your elbows up. Although last night a friend said, "No I just stand right in front of the door and then everyone behind me pushes me on." Skills, dude. I did catch a train or 2, hanging out the doorway, and it didn't feel too unsafe, but i wouldn't want to pull that shit on a daily basis.

But anyhow, it's WAY more dangerous than BJ. Mainly 'cause the doorways have no doors. Sure i love to stand in the doorway for the great view and breeze like everyone else does, but people DO fall out, and falling out is often fatal. Hell, last night, my friend's wife sent him a eerie txt that a woman in her train car had just fainted and fallen out the door. You may recall my mention of the daily railway casualties. Scary stuff.

And yes, when it's super packed, people will resort to climbing on the roof, and nobody installed the seatbelts up there.

Also, there's rumours of theft on the trains. A nigerian dude told me he's lost 3 cell phones. I always felt pretty safe, but you all know how naive i can be, right?

well, it's easy to bitch about the Bombay transit system, but to keep things in perspective, in India it's one of the best. Frequency is good. Express trains. Lots of buses. I guess it's hard to expect any system to cope with a massively dense population like Bombay's.