Of auditory hallucinations and lady motormen

"Hurry Home". That's what the song at the little music shop in the Churchgate subway seemed to warble at 9 am this morning. Then I realized what it actually meant was "Hari Om". All this rain and wanting to stay at home is sending me subliminal signals everywhere leading to auditory hallucinations now.

Reached work without any trouble unfortunately. Kept peering at the tracks to see if the water level was rising, but unfortunately the low tide played spoilsport. Never mind. I am fascinated by tracks anyway - I can look for hours at the merging, the separating - and I often wonder how the motormen know which track to take, especially at high speeds. I would have got quite confused and landed on the CR tracks from WR, I think! It's a good thing I'm not a motorman (or woman).

I met the sole lady motorman on CR once at last years WIPS (Women in Public Sector) annual meeting. It was an awe-inspiring speech and she was the only speaker in the two day forum who got a standing ovation. Not even Shobha De, Naina Lal Kidwai et al were that inspiring... She told tales of being a woman in this tough job, running over commuters on a daily basis and coming to terms with 'murder' (because there's no way to stop a fast train till it's too late), dealing with irate commuters and still managing to maintain her sanity...

And I thought I had a tough life.
:)