Personal Space

The other day I happened to glance at the front page of The Economic Times. Huge headlines boasted of the accomplishments of the railway minister. “Passenger fares cut for all classes & no increase in freight across the board.” I flipped to the second page: “Mumbai’s suburban trains transport about 680,000 commuters every day.” Per-day. Per Day! It’s an almost inconceivable number. That is, until you board a local train – or you find yourself amidst a crowd, like the one to the left, that is rushing to do so. More on that in a moment.

My transition to this city has been a bit of a wake up call. In Vijayawada, I didn’t have to – well – participate too much in society. For starters, I lived in a quiet, isolated compound, set back from the road. I chose to go to the grocery store once a week for biscuits and Haldiram’s, and I chose to take the 45-minute snot-blackening walk back. In that way, the invasion of my space – when it happened along the walk– was part of the adventure. In a way, I went looking for it; I wanted stories, I wanted experiences, I wanted to feel part of something - the culture - outside of work.

Here in Mumbai, when someone or something gets into my space, more often than not I’d rather it or he (it’s always a man) get out. Immediately.

I have a small studio apartment, which I love; but things keep showing up against my will. First of all, I don’t subscribe to The Economic Times. It’s delivered every day, but most days I don’t read it. Still, until this morning (I moved in three weeks ago), when a teenage newspaper boy knocked on my door, paper in hand, and asked, “Do you want?” I had no idea how to cancel the previous tenant’s subscription.

This also is the case for my (his) cable subscription. Similarly, I can’t seem to eliminate the sulfuric stench in my bathroom - though I’ll concede that the smell may actually originate from outside the window, or – and this would be far worse – from the water supply that flows to my faucets.

You see I’ve read that Mumbai’s aging sewage pipes run side-by-side, underground, with ‘potable’ water pipes, and that some of the sewage – that which doesn’t drain out into the ocean – leaks and is absorbed by the ‘fresh’ water pipes. In other words, one person’s shit ends up in another person’s sink.

And many days – of late – I’ve felt like the sink.

A studio apartment to myself is as close to personal space as is possible in this city. It’s a luxury, as is my running water. Smells of questionable origin, subscriptions that should have been discontinued, and a neighbor across the alleyway whose musical taste varies from Belinda Carlisle to “How Much is That Doggie in the Window,” are minor invasions of personal space in comparison to what it’s like to, say, travel on the local trains. So it comes, perhaps, as little surprise that I should have started to go emotionally downhill – fast – after riding the train during rush hour last week.

I board the train at its origin. There are no doors; none that close while the train is running. Pretty soon I’m folded and stuffed into the center of the massive human herd. I'm wearing my backpack. I find momentary peace in the anonymity of the crowd, until I remember that mine is the only white face amongst the 680,000 people who have chosen to join me in this car, stare at me, and fight their way into what I desperately tell myself is my space. At this point, I want nothing more than to be back in my apartment, watching someone else’s cable, bathing in someone else’s shit.

People burst onto these trains at every stop like water erupting from a broken main. I become convinced the crowd will throb and I’ll be shoved from the moving train. I grip the overhead handle, redknuckled, and try to keep a distance from the door. The ride goes on. I’m not thrown from the train, but my nerves are shot. I look around: others grip the doorframe and lean into the rushing air, heads and limbs dangling from the train. They are insane. The whole thing is insane. As for personal space? Forget it.

I don’t know how to keep these unwanted things and curious but occasionally invasive people away from me, so I’m learning to embrace it, and (if I can - hopefully) them. I can't maintain the level of frustration that I have been carrying around with me of late. I’m learning to turn inwards; to find peace in my immediate surroundings by changing my attitude - and my behavior. But it's hard. I take small steps. When the inward-searching fails, I buy air fresheners; I don’t ride second-class at rush hour; once in a while I flip on the TV. BBC. Animal Planet. And when I wake up tomorrow morning, if I’m lucky, there will not be a newspaper in front of my door.