The Local Trains Women’s Compartment

The Women’s Compartment of Mumbai’s Local Trains heralds, I am certain, the death of feminism in the not-so-distant future. That’s because the evils of the Women’s Compartment by far surpass the horrid discomforts suffered in the General Compartment, where salivating stares can at least (and under application of rioting fantasy) lead one to the conclusion that one is, in fact, an excessively juicy, gorgeous piece of double-X-Chromosome.

Not so in the Women’s Compartment, henceforth shortened to W’s C, which must – after minimal travel time – lead one to the irrevocable conviction that, truly, women are a mere spin-off of the male, and a sub-standard one at that. Nothing more could possibly have gone into the production of the female than a sodding spare of rib-cage.

There are rules to the Local Trains. What looks like a rush of madness to the uninitiated newbie is a finely tuned mechanism of in&out, which has converted countless carnivores into vegetarians – assaulted as they were by a sudden onslaught of compassion for sardines. For example, one needs to learn just how far you can push those in front of you before they plant you a facer.

Another rule of the Locals is „Ek aur ho jaye“ (One more/Einer geht noch), which means that a seat manufactured for three standard butts can easily hold four. So you are expected to „thoda adjust karo“ (Adjust a little/Rutsch ma rüber) for a fourth person to squeeze onto the bench. The logic behind this is simple: why allow three people to sit in comfort if you can harass them with your close presence and sit yourself? Get the point?
Me neither.

„Thoda adjust karo“ is in fact a pleasant if deceptive euphemism for „move over, b-„ (henchod/itch, depending on the addressee).

However, the „Ek aur ho jaye“ rule does not apply to First Class. But females, their Gray Matter wholly consumed by detailed recollections of past shopping escapades and the anticipation and careful planning of any such future event, cannot be made to comprehend such higher principles as „Comfort“. :. Therefore, you are required to adjust just a little in the Women’s First Class Compartment as well. The very purpose of the First Class having been successfully eliminated by the overpowering female desire to attach her bum to any horizontal slab regardless of its size (both slab and bum), led to me travelling Second Class.

The occasional fisher woman, bag of leafy vegetable or betel-chewing beauty is so much more bearable than First Class office women travailing in an unpleasant cloud of assumed superiority.

However, the W’s C Second Class is still hazardous! Yesterday, a woman with large storage compartments for fat cells attached to her buttocks demanded us to adjust just a little, so that she could be the Fourth on our seat. I was instantly prompted to doubt she would be able to force anything more than a quarter of her gigantic derriere onto the seat, but I had not reckoned with the momentum such a monstrous piece of jelly flesh develops when swung very hard. I swear my hips have been compressed by two inches at least, while I calculated just how many truck loads of soap Brad Pitt could have made from this fine example of gluttony.

Another fatal flaw of the W’s C is the noise level. There’s such a vicious strumming of vocal cords that any attempt at a meaningful telephonic conversation must be frustrated, while any reading activity is frequently interrupted by graphic images of bloodshed. I am now convinced that polygamy is prohibited for the benefit of the male, since no man could be with more than one such euphoric female speech organ without suffering severe hearing loss. :lalala:

It is due to these ignominious conditions (amongst others) in the W’s C that I have come to believe that having two exemplars of one kind is not necessarily a good thing. X-Chromosomes for one. ;D