[Reader-list] Are you going to take the space home?

[Zainab Bawa]

21/02/2004
>From Kandivali to Santacruz
Time: 4:00 PM

“Are you going to take this space home?”
---
Observations on Space and Human Behaviour


At Kandivali station, Radhika, Santoshi and myself got into the train. There 
was a disorganized rush all of which was trying to get into the train. 
Radhika and Santoshi got into the train from one door. I normally like to 
get in with ease and so I got into the train from another door where the 
crowds had eased out. Radhika and Santoshi found seats for themselves close 
to the door where they got in. I was about to get into one of the empty 
seats near the door where I got in from when Radhika and Santoshi shouted, 
“Eh, come here,” calling me to join them. When I reached up to them, they 
realized that they should have let me sit where I was trying to earlier 
because now, their seat of three was packed with three people.

Radhika is fat. She was occupying the corner, window seat (most coveted 
seating position). Santoshi is slim and she was seated in between. On the 
outside, a third lady was seated. When I reached the seat, both Radhika and 
Santoshi felt obliged to give me space to sit. Santoshi began moving inwards 
towards Radhika, trying to make a little space for me to sit in. Ideally, I 
should have asked the lady on the outside to give me space to sit, but here 
I was, together with Santoshi, acting like an encroacher. I felt a bit to 
embarrassed about this encroachment which I was making. The lady on the 
outside felt a bit uncomfortable, but she decently allowed me to sit in and 
then she moved to another empty seat. Had there been someone else in her 
place, she would have created a hue and cry about what Santoshi and I were 
doing and it would have flared up into a complete conflagration.

A crowd got into the train at Goregaon. A woman came and sat next to me. She 
asked me to shift in so that there would be enough place for her to sit. 
Radhika reluctantly moved in, but the lady on the outside was still 
uncomfortable. She aggressively asked all of us to move in for a second 
time. Radhika was totally irritated by now and she said, “Where will I move 
in further? There is a rod out here!” Santoshi checked for the rod, almost 
trying to ascertain whether Radhika was telling the truth because Radhika 
can be quite impish and vindictive when provoked and confronted. The lady 
now told Radhika with all her might, “Just shift in and you (she said 
pointing to Santoshi), you just move in a bit like this,” and I shifted 
positions too. Thus, towards the end, the lady had successfully made a 
comfortable seating arrangement for herself. She said to Radhika, “See now, 
there is enough space. I just asked you to shift in. You are not going to 
take this space home, are you? All of us are here for short journeys and we 
all need place to sit.”

I thought this was a very crucial remark, “You are not going to take this 
space home!” Yes, none of us are going to take the space home, and yet, the 
way we fight in trains is as if we are fighting for ‘very, very precious 
space which belongs exclusively to us!’ Behaviour in trains is no 
simulation. It is real life. Even in trains, we fight for space just like we 
fight for space everywhere, in all aspects of life, in one form or another.

Seats got empty at Andheri and this lady on the outside immediately jumped 
to the opposite seat which was highly comfortable and quite spaced out. I 
shifted out and made space for three of us to sit more comfortably. Another 
lady came and sat next to me. Again I shifted in. She left in a short while 
and I shifted out again. Santoshi was watching me. She giggled and said, 
“Poor you! You have to keep adjusting!!!” It was actually quite a funny 
exercise where I was constantly shifting, sometimes to a shrinking space, 
sometimes to an expanding space!

This morning I had been to the slums in Ramgarh. Ramgarh is located on 
forestland. The government does not want the slum dwellers to reside here 
and hence, periodically, the government demolishes their hutments, forcing 
them to evict. The government demolishes their houses; they go on another 
place on the same land and build their houses again. Ramgarh is located on a 
hill slope area. Earlier, people were living on top. Now, they have been 
forced to move down. Currently, some people have paid money to the 
government officials and they have been allowed to live on the land for 
another year or so. But there will be demolitions in between. I asked them 
what if the government throws them out completely from this area. They 
aggressively told me, “How can the government do this to us? We will not 
move. We will stick to our place and we will make sure that the government 
does not think it will be easy to move us out! After all, we have been 
living on this land since the last 15 years, who dare throw us out from 
here?”

These people in Ramgarh also shift spaces like I did in the train today. 
Radhika wanted to keep her space in tact today even though she has been 
sitting there for less than 15 minutes!

Each one of us in trains is possessive about our space/our seat, especially 
when it is a crowded train where there are more people scrambling for 
limited space. In a crowd, our true natures are revealed. We can give a very 
tough fight for space because each one of us wants space to be comfortable. 
Otherwise, we become irritable and violent creatures.
Simmin and me fight at home for space. We fight for space to keep our 
individual books. We fight for space to maintain our privacy. Mom wants 
mental space when she fights with dad. She wants us to respect ‘her’ space. 
I know that there is very little space at home. Yet, we have to give mom 
“her space”. So, what does “space” mean?

In January, I was traveling from Byculla to VT at 6:00 PM in the evening. It 
was empty train. The train got on to VT and I moved close to the door to get 
off. Before I could get off, a huge deluge of women madly rushed into the 
train even before it had properly stopped at the platform and was still in 
motion. The women almost trampled me and in order to save myself, I stood 
flattened by the door! It was MOB! It was a mad mob which was totally blind 
except to its sole objective: “Get the bloody seats to sit!” The women were 
returning to their homes and they knew that if they did not go in for a 
scramble for the seats, they would be left behind and would have to probably 
stand throughout their long journeys. That two-minute incident was almost 
like observing an actual riot. In a riot too, I imagine that people scramble 
in order to get the spoils, and get as much as the spoils as possible within 
the little time that they have. These women were also looking for their 
prized spoils i.e. the coveted window seats to sit before the train got 
crowded in minutes time.
For a moment, I was totally dazed about what had happened. I felt like a mad 
flock to wild geese had suddenly been let loose and they were on a kill! But 
then, I shook myself and said, ‘Well, this is only a bunch of women, getting 
back from office to home and they are looking for a space to settle in now 
and unsettle in later.’ But the question which lingered in my mind was 
whether human beings can be so violent for space? Or is it about bottled 
stresses and emotions which get their spark in the evening, when it’s time 
to journey back to homes. What kind of space is provided in trains which 
helps this mob of women to settle in and then unwind either by themselves or 
with their Sahelis and Maitreens?

On February 15, when I was traveling back from Kurla to Parel, a Muslim 
woman and myself were trying to locate seats for ourselves in a crowded 
ladies compartment. Time and again, both of us would miss having seats 
before someone else would cleverly capture them. At one time, this Muslim 
woman was about to park herself into a seat when someone asked her to push 
out because she had already made an arrangement with the woman vacating the 
seat that the latter would give the seat to the former. The Muslim woman had 
a tired look on her face and she was trying to stand patiently, waiting for 
a seat to empty where she could sit. This brief incident made me think about 
the issue of ‘minorities and space – scramble for resources’. During 
communal violence and clashes, majorities are fighting against minorities 
claiming that too much space has been given minorities and that they must 
learn how to accommodate.
Images of Gujarat, Israel-Palestine, slum dwellers and various other 
groupings in society which are clashing for space come to my mind when I see 
little clashes in the train for space – for those very crucial seats. Wow! 
Is this what spaces do to us?

-	Zainab Bawa
-	For communication, email zainabbawa at yahoo.com

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