Dear Lalloo-ji, "Aap Kaise Ho?"

It was the usual commute back home today. Just the usual faces, avoiding eye contact, keeping faces blank. Then one passenger mentions how he is sitting on a bump in the seat. Yes, I say, I have sat on a bump in the first class compartment of Bombay local train and have suffered from a backache for days. One for the record: Bombay trains are centuries old, and never maintained.

“Yes, I have suffered your fate,” I say.

And then conversation flows between the six of us sitting facing each other, as if we have known each other for years. I feel sorry that I said on this blog somewhere that they were all creeps. No they aren’t. They are nice people, only a bit confused.

“They don’t listen to us.”

“No they do. They do reply. I got a reply to a complaint I posted, only it was 6 months late,” I say. Government departments do reply to mail, it’s the private companies who don’t. Try reaching customer support of your favourite cellular operator.

“I had complained against a bus conductor and they deducted two days’ salary as penalty,” another, a senior citizen said.

“We must complain, why are we paying three times more when we aren’t getting any comfort during our commute?”

“Yes we must.”

So I draft this letter to Lalloo Prasad Yadav, the railway biggie shot (I just saw him reading a poem in broken English on television), saying how his railways suck though it takes a lot of money out of our pockets. I just finished writing that letter and I will post it tomorrow.

Watch this space for further developments. Will they reply?

Anthonybhai says, “No men, they not bothered only. What you think they will do, they are all lazy buggers, lazy frigging, badmashlog. No justice in this world men, kya re?”