My instinct tells me not to get into this train - at least, not this compartment. Who dares wins, I tell myself. It's only slightly crowded, so I decide to dare.

I take pride in spotting just the right spot on the train - just near the entrance, but not too near. I let my ankles and calf muscles hold my legendary black bag and rest my back on the partition between two sitting enclosures. The next station comes even before I could finish reading the first line of the Hindi poster boasting of a local doctor's proficiency in handling cases of infertility and sexually transmitted diseases.

And with it comes the crowd that I never imagined could fit in 15 compartments of the train. A man with a funny mustache that fails to touch his upper lip mumbles something in Marathi and places a truckload of vegetables on my right foot. Apparently, another train to Ambernath had just broken down. I look ahead; I see heads, heads and heads. I look above; I see hands, hands and hands. I look down; I see feet, feet and feet. I grow claustrophobic by the second.

In what looks like a few decades, the train reaches the next station. To me it only means more crowds. Amazing, these high-spirited Mumbaiites. They are so overtly ecstatic! At what, I fail to understand. As there is nothing else to do, I try to reason out why - could this be an orgy for them? To me, it's more gang rape than group sex, I think. Now, my thoughts wander - where has the population control gone wrong? I wonder. A terrible push from somewhere across the compartment brings me back to the practical world and I suddenly realize that the train might just be a part of the plan to implement population control.

To escape a successful implementation on myself, I move with a monstrous effort to lift my bag up and start inching towards the entrance. At last, I succeed in reaching it. The dangling gang of ruffians at the entrance welcomes my intrusion with absolute indifference. "Thanks for reminding me that I'm just another insignificant piece of shit on this vast universe," I tell them. They respond with continued coldness. And now, it starts raining. "Wow, it's the adventure of a lifetime; look at the tracks running speedily, and the clouds following the train, in a desperate attempt to match the speed of the train."

The clouds fail. I can see them chasing us. There are no clouds above the first compartment, but we are soaking. Should write a poem on this, I think. And the train stops abruptly; will not move an inch for the next 20 minutes. I don't belong with the dangling gang; definitely not with the 200-ton bag on my shoulder that has suffered a repetitive stress injury. The other hand holds on to the central pole at the entrance like my life depended on it. Actually it did.

The train starts moving (just after my feet go numb and I can feel a 'spring' in them) only to stop midway, a few yards before the platform of the next station. Another twenty minutes in the middle of nowhere. I try to perfect my transcendental meditation practice. It just doesn't work. I give up. Every inch of my body either aches or feels funny. I'm absolutely helpless. Nothing worse than being a non-believer, I tell myself. Too eerie. I start thinking about who said, "Thank God I'm an atheist." I give up. I transcend.

Now, all I can do is eagerly wait for the moment I'll be pushed down.