How to irritate your co-passengers in Mumbai local trains

While these suggestions are primarily meant for 1^st class passengers, I think they can be applied (though with a varying degree of success) in the 2^nd class compartment. I am unfortunate not to have any experience of the Ladies compartments (not that I would mind, but it’s a punishable offence) and hence can’t offer any suggestions there.

Legs in V – formation with arms stretched

No – this is not a yoga posture. If you get a seat, keep your legs in V-formation, with knees opening outward, and arms stretched out of the line of your body. This position helps you maximize the space you occupy, and as everyone knows, space in Mumbai  is at a premium. Such a seating posture helps you invade the  personal space of the passenger(s) seated besides you, and is especially effective if you are seated in the middle. This is also a key body language signal, which says aloud that you, alpha male that you are, care only and only for your personal comfort and no further.

Stand with backpacks on your back / front

In a crowded train, the backpack is your only protective shield. Wear it on you back if you are standing, and the guy behind you will curse the day he was born – and ditto for the guy in front of you, if you choose to wear it on your front. A backpack slung on your frame also helps consume the standing space meant for at least one more person, with the net result of making the compartment feel more crowded for others.

Sound of Music

While listening to your favourite music on the mobile phone, be generous and share it with the world – keep the phone on loudspeaker. This would generate immense goodwill for you, as people are befitted by free music (of course, of your choice!) in the stressful environment of a local train compartment. While its another matter that the sound emanating from your phone might be a shrill cacophony, its clearly the faulty eardrums of your co-passengers (who also seem to have defective eyes, the way they are staring at you).  

Let the whole world know!

Talk on your phone loudly, as if you are relying on your own lung power rather than the air-waves to carry your voice. Let the whole world know that you are not afraid of them knowing about your business or personal matters, thereby setting high standards of transparency (Isn’t that whats Anna Hazare wants?). It doesn’t matter that people are reading, talking, or sleeping – my voice loudest.

Regulate

Stand at the footboard – right from VT, even if you have to get down at Virar / Karjat / Panvel – and don’t let people use that part of the entrance. Insist that they use the other half of the entrance only for boarding and lighting. After all, it’s a matter of property rights, and having paid the (subsidised) fare, you have as much claim as anyone else on railway property, inconvenience or safety be damned. This way you are regulating the flow of people in or out of the compartment, ensuring that maximum no. of people of discouraged from using the trains, thus reducing the load and the subsidy burden on railways.

 P.S : These are some common irritants I have faced during last 5 years of my commute on Harbour Line, and I can safely assume that these are common issues faced everyday – small irritants showing the utter lack of civic sense that  relatively well-to-do ( 1^st class passengers) , middle class citizens have .