A Minor War on the Day the Train Drivers Went on Strike

Yesterday, being the day on which the pampered train drivers of Bombai went on strike, this weird and funny thing happened at VT station. Ho hum. Some background here as my international readers won't understand what a train drivers' strike is.

In India any interested group can decide what to do, whenever they fee like it. So when you get up in the morning and see garbage accumulated on all roads, you know the sweepers are on strike, when the yellow taxis aren't visible and people with heavy luggage are looking like fishes out of water you know the taxis are on strike, likewise with rickshaws also, when the whole city is deserted and nobody is on the street you know some big brother has called a "bandh" which is the father of all strikes.

So the train drivers were on strike, except a few souls who took pity on the likes of me and decided that enough was enough and at 8.30 p.m. decided to drive one train to Panvel. So I get into this one train to Panvel and am able to fit a toe on an inch of space in this train. I find that the adjacent ladies compartment is also full.

As expected a man jumps into the ladies compartment, complaining the gentlemen's compartment was too full, and, besides, he enjoyed the company of women.

Will the women let him "enjoy" their company?

Poor chap he got such a tongue lashing he will never forget in his miserable life. The women just gave him "left and right". The poor chap tried all he could with his limited lung power to explain that since the crowd was so huge (imagine around 100 thousand people in a train) could they please adjust him?

• No, you get down just now. Or we will pull the chain and stop the train.
  

The man is like a sheep among jackals except that the men in the adjacent compartment are encouraging him thusly:

• Come on, man, show them your mardangi (manhood).
  
• Come on, if they come into our compartment we will throw them out.
  
• Kya admi, can't you give a proper reply to those women?
  
• What a coward, afraid of women?
  

The compartment turns into a battleground with the women on one side, the men on the other, and the man, sort of ping pong ball between them. I didn't know the sexes were at war. I always thought the male and female of the species were in love of the Bollywood kind. Snort!

What happened next is as expected. The man was expelled by the sheer lung power of the women, that too, not a honorable exit through the door, but he had to climb over the metal divider and step into the gentlemen's compartment.

Men are from Mars and Women from Venus, you say? Then I guess these planets are at war. Yes, it was a minor war in the compartment.