Bambai LIFELINE

THE lafda in Mumbai hasn8217;t managed to keep 21-year-old Pramod Kushwaha from trying his luck in the city. He knows Raj Thackeray and his MNS has said North Indians are not welcome in Mumbai. The timing, he agrees, is unfortunate but then this too shall pass. His guide in his new journey is a close friend from his village near Kanpur, who is a year younger but five years richer in the Mumbai experience. 8220;I went five years ago and stayed with my brother. Now I make plastic moulds,8221; says Pramod8217;s 20-year-old friend Sandeep Kushwaha.
8220;I too will make plastic moulds. I don8217;t know how to but I8217;ll learn,8221; declares Pramod, looking out of the window. Familiar sights and sounds of countryside pass by and melt into the fading light. Mumbai is a night away.
In the Kushinagar Express, as in the other trains that run from Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai, there are those who lead and those who are led. For everyone new going to Mumbai, there is another, if not a few, who are holding his hand and helping him get to Mumbai. A few years ago these veterans had been the new boys, eager-eyed and slightly apprehensive. Now they are hard-talking city dwellers who mix their lilting eastern UP accent and gruff Bambaiya Hindi with ease.

8220;BINDAAS baitho,8221; says 20-year-old Badre Alam. From Khalilabad near Gorakhpur, Alam first went to Mumbai 7-8 years ago and is now one of the many from his belt who work in Mumbai. He tried his hand at zari embroidery, then at selling lottery tickets before moving on to welding. He now works with his brothers who run a business getting salt from Gujarat.
8220;When I first came to Mumbai, I liked looking at the crowd but later I would feel homesick,8221; says Alam. 8220;Par ab phir jamta hai Now I like it. What I don8217;t like is the fights the local taporis often pick up with us, calling us bhaiyyas,8221; he adds.
In another compartment five-year-old Mohammad Owaiss has made up his mind to like Mumbai. He sits sandwiched between his uncle and another relative, excited at the altered landscape and gapes admiringly at the hills of Maharashtra. 8220;Will our train have to go underground now?8221; he asks, staring at the hills. His uncle laughs in answer and Owaiss abandons the pursuit of finer technical details and goes back to admiring the view.
Accompanied by his 20-something uncle, Mohammaed Sayyid, Owaiss is going to live with his father who works in Mumbai. In the crowded compartments, conversations begin and end abruptly. It8217;s difficult to tell the parents of children from neighbours and well-wishers. Everybody sits close, the kids take turn in gracing everyone8217;s laps and in good time are spanked by all.
Sayyid8217;s village Dassawan is 40 km away from Basti. It takes him a 5-km walk to get to the roadhead from where he can get a ride to Basti to catch his train. In every household in his village, someone has made that trek. 8220;Delhi is closer to our place but everyone in our village only wants to go to Mumbai. I wonder why,8221; he says.
He has the answer too. 8220;You can8217;t earn as much in Delhi as you can in Mumbai. Bambai toh Bambai hai,8221; he says.
There8217;s the sea, the crowds, Haji Ali and there8217;s the Bambaiya lingo. Everyone in the village, says Sayyid, has seen all this in films and they want to check it out for themselves.
In this cultural borrowing, Mumbai8217;s street language has become an unlikely bridge between the country8217;s eastern state and western city. Not surprisingly the posterboy of Bambaiya language, Sanjay Dutt, is a favourite in these parts.
And if Amitabh Bachchan rules the hearts and minds in Uttar Pradesh, an identification that made the star8217;s home the target of attacks by MNS8217;s men, Salman Khan is the preferred choice of the young. Shah Rukh Khan may be the Badshah of Bombay, but in the hinterland, Salman is King.

TALK in the general compartment flits between issues that are trivial and those that are serious and the tone ranges from general banter to grave undertones. On a 1,680-km long journey that takes over 34 hours and is punctuated with 45 stops, there is enough time to try the whole range.
Avdesh Kumar Yadav is reading out the headlines. Sitting around him are others who all work in Mumbai, some as drivers, others as construction labourers. The agitation against North Indians in Mumbai, says Yadav, is politically motivated and they were targeted because they are making their presence felt in the city.
Yadav went to Mumbai in 1997 and after two years of struggling, found his feet. He now owns a fruit shop in Dahisar, is comfortable and says he manages to save Rs 5,000 every month. 8220;When I went to Mumbai in 1997, all I had was a ticket and Rs 500. It8217;s not just me. Everyone who goes from our village takes only Rs 500. If they are more shaukeen, they take maybe Rs 1,000,8221; he says.
8220;We have land in the village but it8217;s usually too small so we have to go out to work and supplement our income. And now though the government gives jobs in villages, many people are ashamed to do menial work. But they will do it in Mumbai because nobody knows them there,8221; says Yadav.
The anonymity of the city, terrifying often, has also lifted away some invisible burdens.
8220;You know the great thing about Bambai? Everyone can earn something there. Some will get Rs 50, some 500, some a thousand but everyone will get something,8221; says Yadav.
The talk of money appears to have drawn the woman selling guavas to Yadav. She thrusts the basket at him but he declines. 8220;I have a fruit business. I can8217;t bear to eat one,8221; laughs Yadav. Fellow passengers join in the laughter.
Other hawkers decide it8217;s the right time to sell their stuff too. The unreserved compartments are the hawkers8217; favourites where they can breeze in and out and test their creativity by singing aloud their latest sales pitch.
The gutkha seller throws health advisories out of the window and defiantly sings, 8220;Gutka khalo-peelo, haazar saal jeelo Have gutkha and live for a thousand years.8221;
His ironical ditty finds many takers. Encouraged by that, the peanut vendor says he is willing to give his peanuts and take the money later. 8220;After all, you will return on Holi or Diwali,8221; he says.
The entire compartment nods.

IT8217;S nearly 12 in the afternoon the following day. It8217;s the end of a long journey that has brought about a thousand people over a thousand kilometres from home. They look out at Mumbai8212;some for the first time8212;with hope and apprehension.
8220;I hope there is no trouble,8221; says Sanju as she gets ready to leave with her husband and nine-month old daughter Kajal, the youngest new 8220;migrant8221; in the train.
As the passengers walk away from the platform and fade away in the crowd, outside the taxis are queuing up.
8220;I too am from UP,8221; says the driver of our cab. 8220;I came here in 1995 and learnt how to drive. Now I have three properties here,8221; he says. Having lived the Bombay Dream, he has no intention of giving it up. If things go bad and he8217;s driven away, he says, he has Plan B. 8220;No tension. I8217;ve bought land and a car back home. I can do farming back home. But if we leave, it will be Mumbai8217;s loss,8221; he grins.