Mumbai Local

I am back to Mumbai local train after a gap of almost 6 years. To say that a lot has changed in last six years will be an understatement. Actually its like the entire world has changed, apart for those rush hour traffic.

One of the biggest change which has come in all these years is mobile phone. From just phones to smart phones, with high speed mobile data at lower cost with affordability and ease of usage, mobile phones have become the new man's best friend.

It was not too difficult to see the same change in train where most of the people have gone away with newspaper and books and have shifted to news apps and social media. But that's all known. So let me move away from the known part to the other way people are using their phones, good and bad part of my 40 min Goregaon to Lower Parel journey.

Good part - Watch a movie. I saw six people watching movies on their phones. With earphones plugged in and phone in hand, the disturbed no one and enjoyed their journey.

Browsing photos, even those which come in what's app forwards and read them careful. Sometime even forward it further.

Gone are the days when you need to go to temple for morning blessings. Open the picture of your favorite god, there they are, your morning blessings in front of you in your hands. The fun part happened when the guy didn't noticed that the screen has timed out. Having finished his prayer, he double tapped the screen and swiped to right, twice, in hurry. Well, the first swipe unlocked his phone but the second swipe changed the picture and in the same hurry, he did a charansparsh. He later realized its not his god but picture of a hot girl in short dress, possibly picked from net, of whom he has done done charansparsh. He directed it in the same breath.

It would have been a laughter event but then the bad part of the journey was also there. No one saw this happened. Everyone had something to do on their mobile phones. No one chatted with anyone or look at other, they ask looked down, either sleeping or looking in their phones.

I got down at Lower Parel and made sure not to open map app but asked few people for the way out to reach my office. One gentlemen stopped and guided me, I thanked him and he wished me a good day. It was really a very good day, joined a new company, started to learn new things, met a lot of new people.

Have a good day.