0901Hrs-1+$$00 People-5Minuets-50 Bucks---Take Your Pick

The platform was almost full of the crowd waiting to board the train. Fullest might be the right word to explain the fullness of it. This train is a special one. It starts from Goregaon station to Churchgate. Unusual starting point and time is 0901 Hrs. Mentioning approximate time again will make a joke out of it, so exact time. This train comes from Churchgate station and then goes reverse back. So the waiting platform full crowd will board the single mighty train. All of them! There is one more interesting aspect of it that the train will arrive just minutes before the scheduled departure time and the crowd will have 3-5 minutes to board the train. So now the scenario is that approximately 1500 people have 3-5 minutes to grab a place in the train. 1/5th of a second per person!
The train comes, halt and here you go.
After 2 minutes the compartment is full. Those who could not grab a place in the train are standing outside and pushing others to get a foothold on the gate. ‘I dropped my mobile somewhere’, said one guy who was standing near to the door. He requested a fellow passenger to give a call on his mobile so that he can locate where it is dropped. ‘masakali-masakali, hun matakali-matakali’
But the sound was very faint. The guy hanging on the gate said ‘I think it is under the train’. ‘No, I think it is inside the compartment. Beneath somebody’s leg’, somebody else just expressed his observation making the scenario absolutely confusing. Now the mobile owner is in a dilemma to overcome this confusion. Few quick solutions he might have considered:-

1.Get off the train and have a look himself or search for the phone beneath the train.
2.Tell the guy on the door to get off and have a look.
3.Leave the train to let it go and then search.
4.Be optimistic and be in the train and then search.

But now the problem is not that he does not have a solution but he does not have time. Only about 2 minutes are left in the train to depart. And let me assure you that train in Mumbai prefer to keep the time.
The person on the gate saw a boy. Around 13 years of age and probably a rag picker. He told him to slip beneath the train and have a look. He showed his disagreement at once but this guy at the gate tried to convince him by offering him some money and then the bidding started.
10 Rs….20Rs….50 Rs….
Finally the deal was done in 50 Rupees. The boy has to go down and search for the phone in next 60 seconds. Now that is the time when I felt utterly disgusted! Cost of a 13 year old life is bloody 50 bucks. Then may be my price is 100 bucks. All my friends worth around 2000 bucks! How cheap! How cheap we have become. Morally and monetarily!

But there were few people who were opposing this idea of boy going down and clearly there were two groups of people fighting for what needs to be done. The mobile owner seems to have gone in a comma and was pretty immune to whatever is happening. Finally the evil won the argument and the boy went down to search the mobile for 50 bucks. What might be going in the boys mind is still difficult to gauge. May be lunch, may be a cigarette, may be a vada paav, may be he just likes to own some money or may be he himself does not value his life enough.

The jerk might be the reason why the proud-mobile-owner came to life again. The jerk of the train starting from a stand still! The jerk in few people brains as to what the consequences can be! The jerk to push us more towards consciousness!