by Density reaches levels where standing becomes a collective achievement
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Riders Held Aloft By Sheer Crush Of Humanity, Feet Never Reaching The Ground
MUMBAI, INDIA — The city’s famous local trains have reportedly reached such extreme levels of crowding that passengers are now commuting without their feet ever touching the floor, held aloft entirely by the dense crush of fellow commuters packed into the carriages.
“I did not touch the floor the entire journey,” reported commuter Sunil Pawar, 33, after a typical morning commute on the Mumbai local. “I boarded, was absorbed into the crowd, and was carried along by the press of bodies. My feet never reached the ground. I floated, essentially, held up by the crush of humanity, from one station to the next. When my stop came, the crowd ejected me, and my feet touched the platform for the first time in the journey. It is the most crowded train in the world. You do not stand. You are held, suspended, by the density of your fellow passengers, commuting without ever touching the floor.”
The Suspended Commute
According to the Institute for Transit Density, the Mumbai local has achieved historic levels of crowding. “The Mumbai local trains carry extraordinary numbers of passengers,” explained Dr. Rajesh Kumar. “The crowding reaches levels seen nowhere else, with carriages packed far beyond any reasonable capacity. At such densities, the phenomenon Mr. Pawar describes becomes possible: passengers held aloft by the crush, feet not touching the floor. The human density is so great that individuals are supported by the bodies around them, suspended in the crowd, commuting without standing. It is an extreme manifestation of the city’s transit crisis, a crowding so total that the floor becomes irrelevant, the passengers held up by each other.”
Daily commuters confirmed the surreal density of the trains. “You become part of the crowd,” said commuter Anjali Deshmukh, 29. “Not an individual standing, but a piece of a single mass of humanity. Your feet leave the floor. You are carried, held, moved by the crowd. You cannot fall, because there is no room to fall. You cannot move, because there is no space. You simply exist within the crush, suspended, commuting without touching the ground. It is uncomfortable, undignified, and somehow also a kind of marvel. The density is so total that you become weightless, held aloft by the humanity packed around you, floating to work in a sea of fellow commuters.”
The Density Marvel
Experts noted that the extreme crowding, while a serious problem, produced genuinely remarkable phenomena. “The density of the Mumbai local is a transit crisis,” said Dr. Kumar. “Passengers endure dangerous, uncomfortable, undignified conditions. But the density also produces remarkable effects, like passengers being held aloft by the crowd. It is a marvel born of crisis, an extraordinary human phenomenon emerging from an unacceptable situation. The trains should not be this crowded. No one should commute suspended in a crush of humanity. But the density has reached such levels that this surreal phenomenon occurs daily, passengers floating to work, held up by each other, commuting without touching the floor in the most crowded trains on earth.”
The crowding has reportedly fostered an unusual intimacy among commuters. “You are pressed against strangers for the entire journey,” said Pawar. “Closer than you would be with family. You feel their breath, their heartbeat, the rhythm of their bodies. There is a strange intimacy in it, a forced closeness that breaks down all barriers. You are not individuals on the train. You are a single organism, a mass of humanity moving together. It is uncomfortable, yes. But there is also a strange solidarity in it, all of us crushed together, suspended together, enduring the impossible density together, commuting as one mass of held-aloft humanity.”
The Accepted Impossibility
Experts noted that commuters had come to accept the impossible crowding as simply the way things are. “The density is so extreme it should be intolerable,” said Dr. Kumar. “And yet commuters tolerate it, daily, because they have no choice. The trains are essential, and the crowding is the price of using them. So passengers accept being held aloft by the crush, accept commuting without touching the floor, accept the impossible density as a fact of life. They have normalized the surreal, made peace with the impossible, adapted to a level of crowding that should not exist. The suspended commute is, for them, simply Tuesday, an extraordinary phenomenon rendered ordinary by daily repetition and the absence of any alternative.”
Deshmukh reflected on the strange normalcy of the impossible commute. “It should be shocking,” she said. “Commuting without touching the floor, held up by a crush of strangers. But it is just my morning. I do it every day. The density that would horrify an outsider is simply my commute. I have stopped finding it remarkable. I board, I am absorbed, I float to work, I am ejected at my stop. It is normal now. The impossible has become routine. I commute suspended in a sea of humanity, feet off the floor, and think nothing of it, because in Mumbai, this is simply how one gets to work, held aloft by the crowd, floating through the city in the most crowded trains in the world.”
The Floating Commute
The Mumbai locals continue to carry their extraordinary loads, the density so extreme that passengers commute suspended above the floor, held aloft by the crush of humanity in the most crowded trains on earth. “My feet did not touch the ground until my stop,” said Pawar, having floated to work through the city in a sea of fellow commuters. “That is just the morning commute.” The passengers, packed beyond all reason, held up by each other in the impossible density, continued to float to work daily, suspended in the crush, commuting without touching the floor, a surreal phenomenon born of a transit crisis, normalized by daily repetition, the riders of the Mumbai local carried along by the press of humanity, weightless and crowded, floating through the city in trains so dense that the floor had become irrelevant and the crowd itself held everyone aloft. For genuine background, see Indian Railways, and for further detail, the World Bank covers the real subject.
More nonsense at The Beaverton.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
