But once the ranks have settled and the wheels start to click, aggression miraculously turns to amiability, belligerence to bonhomie. Time to swap recipes and stock tips, sing bhajans, chop dinner vegetables into handy plastic bags, play rummy on briefcases, haggle for hairclips with a five-year-old salesman — get on with the Journey of Life on this tenuous, one-track lifeline.

The 60 km crawl home takes nearly two hours. The seats are hard and unforgiving, the windows barred with chicken mesh, the smell of rusting iron seeps into your skin, and the tired old fans try valiantly to stir the stale air. 6.1 million daily commuters. 184 trains. Two lines. One seat for every three passengers.

For fifty years, we have been promised better: more rakes, faster engines, fewer delays, additional lines, foot over bridges, safer subways, increased security, disaster cells, cushioned seats, air-conditioned carriages, electronic ticketing, swanky stations, gourmet catering, piped music, pneumatic systems, sky trains, underground metros, better services.

But promises are made to be broken. This is India in a Railway Carriage, a mini facsimile of one billion people who know that to live is to struggle. And to succeed is to surrender — nay, embrace the Inevitable. Fortunately, it will take more than seven bombs to shake that faith.