[Reader-list] Borivali Railway Station and MNC Drop Box

[Zainab Bawa]

28 September 2004
Churchgate to Borivali Station
6:00 PM

Now, imagine the following:

Ø	At Bandra Station, the hoardings are loudly propagating the brand new 
Orange phone from which you can watch Television and clips of your favorite 
TV Serial.
Ø	The train halts at Andheri where the advertising is loud and clear about 
a great career in E-Serve, a branch of Citigroup Companies. You are promised 
nine levels of fast growth and a great career.
Ø	You land at Borivali Station and DNA Group Builders are confidently 
selling (through hoardings) about a dream house in a dream locality with 
amenities of a swimming pool, gymnasium, supermarket and everything that you 
want right at your doorstep!

Imagine the above in reverse order! Now, aren’t you being sold a fast 
dream through a fast train at quick paced railway stations?

This evening, I was doing the rounds of Borivali station. Borivali station 
is Mumbai’s connection with Gujarat, Ahmedabad and Surat. I am not joking 
– you have to come here to experience the real thing! It is predominantly 
a Gujarati area. A joke which a Gujarati friend used to tell me very often 
was, “You see Zainab, all these Gujarati families from Ahmedabad take a 
mail train to Mumbai and land at Borivali. From Borivali, they take a taxi 
and head straight to the US Consulate for visas to America. Along the way, 
in the taxi, they teach their children how to answer questions at the 
consulate in Gujju English!” I believe this myth – it is quite a 
reality. A year ago, an acquaintance in one of the American Centers in the 
city carried out an exercise in Surat town which involved knocking at the 
door of every household and finding that at least one member in the family 
is settled in the US of A!

Borivali is a highly disorganized station. At 6:00 PM in the evening, the 
station was teeming with several thousands of people, each one popping their 
head out of the crowds to see whether their train was arriving on the 
platform or not. An important thing about Borivali station is that 
outstation trains land here and also halt here between stations. But unlike 
other stations where the local and outstation train platforms are separated, 
at Borivali, the same station serves local and outstation trains. This leads 
to uncertainty and the uncertainties are pertaining time – will the train 
be on time??? The other interesting characteristic of Borivali station is 
that in the evenings, the crowds are heavy in both directions for local 
trains i.e. thousands of people are coming back from town to their homes and 
at the same time, thousands of people are traveling back from Borivali to 
their homes in other localities. When I was in the train this evening, I 
noticed that the crowd of ladies traveling with me from Borivali were 
actually going back all the way to Dadar and switching trains from Western 
to Central lines. Now, that’s quite a task late evening. In fact, while 
standing at the platform waiting for a train to return back home, a burkha 
clad woman got talking with me:

Burkha Clad Woman: Ladies compartment will come here nah?
Me: Of course. Don’t you see so many ladies standing here?
Burkha Clad Woman: Oh yes.
After a while, Burkha Clad Woman said to me: It will be quite crowded now. 
These days, traveling by train from Borivali Station is an ordeal. There is 
so much rush even when we have to travel in the down direction, towards 
Churchgate.
(With some thought, she qualified her previous statement.) But, I am sure it 
must be even worse to travel from Churchgate to Borivali, even for those 
going to Virar. Look there (she said pointing to the opposite platform where 
teeming thousands were standing with their heads outstretched in the 
direction in which the train was expected to arrive.)!

At Churchgate – food stalls: I had boarded a train from Churchgate to 
Borivali. I was peering around at Churchgate which seemed very sane even at 
5:00 PM in the evening. Today, I spent sometime at Churchgate station. I 
stood at the Himachal Pradesh Apple Juice stall and was drinking some apple 
juice. I noticed that people actually take time to stand at various food 
stalls at Churchgate station and talk to their colleagues. Churchgate 
Station is the hub for office-goers and collegians. These two tribes are 
most frequent at the station. People fix meeting spots at various stalls. 
While picking up a coffee or a Frankie, they chat with each other. Also, if 
individuals want to have a private chat on the mobile phone, they will go 
over to the coffee stall, pick up a coffee and hang around the stall till 
they finish their conversation. The food stalls at Churchgate station are a 
resting point, a place where you take time off and be with yourself or your 
colleague. There is a certain ‘sophisticated’ crowd which stands at the 
Frankie stalls and the coffee stalls. The prices of the food items are very 
affordable. But it is the fast track executives who patronize these fast 
foods. On the other hand, right at the start of the platform are stalls 
selling Railway Canteen Food including donoughts and burgers ala Indian 
Style, non-veg pattice and sandwiches, and the faithful samosas, kachoris 
and Indian snacks. These have patrons in the form of the government 
office-going crowd and even from among the corporate executives.
Other stalls at the station include the Wheelers’ (which Laloo Prasad 
Yadav was threatening to evict), a UTI Bank ATM counter (with a security 
guard outside), a stall selling religious and Indian culture and history 
books, a Railway Canteen (in addition to the stalls) and a new Chinese 
Restaurant which will be opening shortly.
The MNC Drop Box: While walking along Churchgate station, I noticed at one 
of the side-walls there was rectangular drop box attached to the wall which 
boldly said, “MNC Drop Box”. What is this? Let me explain. An MNC drop 
box is a service where you can drop your mobile phone bills, electricity 
bills and deposit cheques. On the MNC Drop Box, logos of different Multi 
National Companies are put. The logos are grouped in categories like mobile 
phone companies, power companies and different banks. The idea is that you 
do not have to go out of your way to pay your bills – you can do it at the 
railway station with this facility. It therefore appears that the railway 
station is also becoming a customized service for users. While the 
transitions are taking place at this site, you can also complete mundane 
monetary transactions. What do you think about this?
The MNC Drop Box is now available at various stations. So far, I have 
noticed it at Churchgate, Mumbai Central and Borivali stations. Talk about 
transformations of the railway station. I wonder what is the railway station 
like in the imagination of the everyday Mumbaiite in terms of his conception 
of the city and his personal aspirations?

Cut to Borivali Station: I got off the train. People were pushing me in 
various directions. You cannot afford to be slow on the platform at Borivali 
station though you can be leisurely at the Foot Over Bridges (FOB). Food is 
the main theme of this station. All kinds of foods are available here. Some 
stalls specialize in juices. Patrons at the stall represent the practice of 
‘a quick bite, a quick drink’ unlike Churchgate which I have elaborated 
upon above.
The other thing about Borivali Station is that it is quite unplanned. Most 
of the public here wants to avoid using the FOB and cross the tracks to 
reach from one platform to the other. Further, at a point in the station, 
some platforms are short while others stretch into some kind of eternity. 
This causes a level of disorganization. I am not yet sure about accidents 
and deaths here, though the Railway Police has some offices tackling with 
accidents and deaths.
As you walk along platform number 1 on this station, you will notice as 
wall-less urinal here. It is meant only for men. While the urinal itself may 
go unnoticed, the stench of ammonia cannot be missed.
There are also benches on platform number 1 where people sit and talk. Today 
I noticed several couples sitting here and talking. There is a foundation 
called Majithia Foundation which has installed boards on the station, some 
of which are attached right above the benches. On each of these boards, 
there are moral sayings in either English or Gujarati. You will find similar 
Majithia Foundation boards at Churchgate station except that these are 
numerous at Borivali and few at Churchgate. These boards are old plantations 
on the stations and are firm and solid. I do not know how many people notice 
these.
At a point on the platform, there is a television screen which displays 
news. I think Sahara news was being played out on the screen. There was a 
little bunch of men watching the news. One of the things about television 
screens at railway stations is that usually, there are few bunches of men 
who stand and watch. Accumulated crowd is a hindrance at the railway 
station, especially if the crowd is right in the middle of movement of the 
rest. I see the plantation of television screens also a part of the age of 
customization for the individual customer. There is a segment of the 
population among the commuters which patronizes newspapers in the evening 
while returning back home. The television screen is meant for this segment. 
At Churchgate station though, the television screen shows things apart from 
news including entertainment, film promos, etc.
The hoardings along Borivali station appeared fresh and new. As mentioned in 
the beginning, today the hoardings were selling the dream of a dream home, 
given to you by DNA Builders. They are actually into the construction 
business, not into gene-play!
It was mighty tough to move around the station given the crowds. From an 
aerial angle as well, all you can immediately notice is thousands of heads, 
eager heads, each one waiting for his/her train!

Event of the Day: On the return journey, the train crossed Kandivali and 
Malad stations. At Goregaon, passengers entering the train were whispering, 
‘there has been a death on the railway tracks’. The train halted a while 
on the tracks at a signal, just before Jogeshwari station. Some of us women 
peered out of the windows to see what was happening. A police officer with a 
torch and two railway karmcharis (workers) were searching the tracks for a 
dead body – someone was run over by a train while crossing the tracks. The 
women around me began to shudder, imagining the gruesome death. Some of them 
had goose flesh, while others kept nodding their heads in fright. I narrated 
the incident to my mother at the breakfast table the next day. She had a 
similar reaction of shudder and fright. Perhaps I was the only one unmoved 
– the insensitive passenger. I have goose flesh and a similar reaction 
when I stand at VT station near the dustbin and people spit into it. The 
sputum is grimy and too difficult to accept in my real imaginations! Yikes!

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