JULY 13: Yatriyo ko hone walli asuvidha ke liye humei khed hei. Dhanyavaad."Imagine going off to sleep to the incessant, monotonous drone of this recorded message, with hand-bags for pillows under the glaring light of the 500 watt bulbs that adorn the walls of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj station. This is precisely what the crowds assembled at CST had to do on Tuesday night. Normal operations were thrown completely out of gear and the Central railway had to cancel both, suburban and long-distance train services because of the torrents."We came to see off my brother who has gone to the Gulf. None of us had seen Mumbai and we thought we'd do some site seeing and shopping. Both have been impossible and now the five of us are stranded here," says Razia, one of the thousands who had thronged to the huge unofficial waiting area in CST, hoping to get an evening train to Nagpur."We had reserved tickets to Calcutta for yesterday. Of course we got a full refund. But now the waiting list number is 206 for a train that leaves in less than four hours," says Gangaram who is on his way back home with a group of 14 others from the same village. The 14 of them made the perilous journey to CST from Panvel in a jeep. "In the middle of it all, the jeep broke down and would not budge. We waded through chest-deep water, lugging our bags with us. But when we reached CST, we were told that no trains were plying. I don't know how 14 of us can manage to go such a long way without reservation.""We basically came to Mumbai for a holiday, thinking the rains would be fun," says Ramesh from Bhilai, "but this is really a city of excesses." He was staying with his sister's family. Due to the heavy downpour, her ground floor flat was flooded. "I'm taking my sister and her kids with me. With so much water, people in this city are likely to drown in their homes," concludes Ramesh.Train services resumed today but not completely. The railways was unable to provide special trains to accomodate yesterday's crowd. "In such a situation, it is not possible to cater to all needs," says CR PRO Y G Kale. "The disruption of services wasn't intentional. The rains weren't our fault. In fact, many of our employees were here the whole night, helping out. We don't have the rakes for extra trains.""Ironical isn't it: six weeks back, droughts made headlines. Seems to be the time for the floods", remarked a man, sitting with thousand others, waiting: Bhagwaan jab deta hei toh chhappar phadke deta hei!
