Maximum City, Minimum Eyes

My P-2 Speech at Mahindra Worli Toastmasters. Sharing with you the text: 

cheers!

Maximum City, Minimum Eyes:

I've often wondered how this humongous city lives on this tiny little piece of land. It was always something for which I never got the right answer, I've got answers - Yes, but never really knew if it was right. For that matter, I didn't even know if a right answer exists for this question. How can people suffer this much, this long? Why do people endure these over filled trains every damn day to their office? Why do they take the same train every day? Why don't they want to escape from here? Why are they here? 

Under this pressure, Under this weight,

Who are these people? What are they?

With all these questions in my mind, on a bright April evening, I took my train to Mumbai.

Early morning as the train entered Mumbai, I had started to get answers to some of those questions. Outside the window was garbage. Right next to the Garbage was someone's home with a whole bunch of people playing cards. A tiny little home on which was another tiny little home with even more people inside. What was most memorable was that moments later i was greeted by a beautiful view of 3 men sitting in a straight line near the garbage, two of them facing the train and 1 with his back towards it, trying to get their daily accounts with the nature cleared. I really don't know if there's a better way to say that here. That, my friends, was a sight! I will never forget that. By the time I reached my destination the smell of fish in some corner of the platform silently entered my lungs and as I started to sweat profusely for no reason, I realized I was finally in Mumbai.

The next day was the first time I took the train to Office. I never knew that the whole damn world would descend upon this small little platform i was standing on just to get to work. I skipped 3 trains expecting the world to run out of men for the next train. This, was my first mistake. Mumbai is never out of people for the next train. With my  heart in my mouth, I tried to enter the next train, my second mistake. I was pushed out by people getting down from the train. Somewhere inside I registered my first lesson for the day: You never TRY to enter the train, just let go and The Force will take you inside. 

When The Force took me inside finally, my hands were locked in someone else's arms while holding the overhead grip as I was still near the door. Standing next to me was a random guy in random formals with a bag over his shoulders and effortlessly hanging on the doors holding onto the grip as if like a curtain. The next station was Mulund, and as this station approached this guy looks at me, at the top of his voice, starts shouting GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA....

Shocked to the end my wits I looked at him and all he did was look me in the eye and continue with this GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..for a second i thought i had stepped on his feet. I hadn't, but he was still going on! I started looking elsewhere in an attempt to try to ignore and prayed that he wasn't a terrorist. 

As the platform approached, It was then that this guy finished what he had started with..."AAAAANNNNPATI BAPPPAA.." and the whole bogie erupted with "...MOOORYAAAAAA!!". Good god I was shocked, relieved, humbled, numb, bamboozled and awestruck..all at once. I had no idea where on earth had I suddenly landed. Somewhere inside I registered my first question that day : "WHY THE HELL AM I HERE?"

Days passed by as I continued to wonder how this city manages to survive, I got used to seeing these crowded platforms and crowded trains full of lonely people. All around me I saw chaos, randomness, sadness and tension on the faces of these people. Mumbai was after all a place full of people who didn't know each other, I thought. I wondered why it was even called the Maximum City. This land didn't care for people, It doesn't care about relations, it doesn't have love and for the sake of humanity, this land doesn't value life.

It took me 4 months to realize how wrong I was.

August 2015, a usual day in office and as always I had to rush to take my train back home. As I rushed past hundreds of random lonely faces to reach my train's door, I didn't realize that my shoe's laces had fallen in love with each other. In the middle of this crowded Thursday they had managed to fall into each others arms and had already tied a knot. As I took my leap of faith to enter the train's door, by God's grace or what I don't know, I tripped. As my knees hit the platform I felt as if the whole world had paused. I could hear my heart beat but I knew it was about to stop. I wanted to move but I couldn't. Paralyzed by sheer fear I just looked at my feet and saw that the laces were now stuck on the door's corner and then I saw the mighty remorseless train had started to move. I was right there, on the platform with one leg on the edge, eyes shocked and wide open, my right hand still on the platform as I watched my feet being rubbed and dragged by a train which was slowly picking up speed. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't see a thing, for a moment i had resigned from life for I knew that within moments I might just be under the next bogie's wheels. In a fraction of a second my whole life seemed to be played in front of my eyes, my parents, my friends, my love. The next bogie was mercilessly coming too soon as I felt my left foot dragged under the train force now. I tried to reach out to an unknown force out there with my left hand but deep within myself, for the first time in my life, I registered how it felt when you know you're about to die.

It was then that in the middle of those family pictures in my mind that I saw a hand. A random hazy hand which had come to me from out of nowhere. All my teared up eyes could see was that the hand was from someone inside the train. I did not realize that the hand had gripped my stretched left hand and in a jerk picked me up with the moving train's force. I felt my legs back up and as that random hand jerked once more I was pulled inside the train. It took me a few seconds to realize what had just happened for the last i remembered, I was almost dead. As I came back to my senses I saw that this random hand had a random face, one of those millions of faces I had ignored all these days. One of those faces whom I had labelled lonely in this crowded world. Little did I know that this random face had just saved my life. Within moments this random guy, whom I couldn't even thank, got down at the next station. I tried to watch him as he went, and as my teary eyes recorded each moment, within me, there was something which knew that this random guy had given me all my answers. As I was tracing the random guy silently walk past the crowd, I heard this voice inside me which said I had my answers for I saw this guy walk past the same crowds that I used to in the same lonely way that I used to. For the first time in my life, inside my head, inside my mind, from the deepest corners of my heart, I knew these answers were right. That random guy who'd saved my life was the soul of this beautiful city. That random guy who saved my life was Mumbai.

That horrifying experience left me with something I'd cherish forever. It gave me beautiful set of new eyes to look at the world around me. Through these eyes I realized that what I saw outside was always a reflection of what I had within me. All that chaos, all that randomness, all that loneliness was never Mumbai, it was always me! Through these new eyes I now started seeing a mother's love for her kid when I saw her smile at a phone call from "Son" on her phone. I started seeing peace inside the person who in the middle of a hyper crowded train found time to sleep. The same eyes which saw Garbage now saw how much life was valued in this city, for even Garbage wouldn't stop them from living a happy life. People didn't suffer here, for them this is home. Through these eyes I saw that the reason people travel in the same train is just to get to meet and speak to the same people every day. People always live here, in spite of the pressure, on this tiny little piece of land, not because they're fools but because behind every breeze of fresh air that blows in this city it brings with it that one glue which makes you live one more day, the glue of life called Hope.

 From Garbage to Loneliness, it wasn't Mumbai, it was all me. For Mumbai was just that random guy who tells you the time, who asks you to take the next left turn, who tells you that it's a one way, who tells you about the next station, and for all those who need, Mumbai is the guy who'd lend you a hand to lift you out of trouble. It didn't take me long to realize, that in reality, that for once and for ever, i had fallen in love with Mumbai. Somewhere deep within, I registered my answer:

"Under this pressure,

Under this weight,

They are diamonds,

taking shape..."

The next morning, with a much lighter mind, a much clearer view, I took that same train, went to that same spot near the door, put my bag over my shoulders, and as Mulund station arrived, with utmost peace inside me, held the grip like a curtain, to the sheer dismay of another young boy standing next to me, I screamed at the top of my voice....GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNPAATTIIIII BAPPPPAAAAAA...MORRRYAAAA