Tokyo local train

If you want to know what the phrase "bursting at the seams" means, look at a Mumbai local train. It looks like people are bursting out of every seam available.I used to think that Japan will be different, with its dwindling population.But how wrong could I be?

So I stood at the Kameido station on my second day in Japan, waiting for the next subway train. The subway in Tokyo is a whole city beneath the earth. With a web of lines which can take you almost anywhere in Tokyo.The train came and it did not seem so full. People went out and I got in with my friend. We went in and faced the door , some people came in the first wave. Then there was second. I thought that the train is full. Then came the third wave. The waves kept coming. It was like tsunami: the waves are not fierce, but they do not stop, they gently but persistently keep coming until you are overwhelmed.People made their way gently, but just when you think that the compartment is full, another few would come in. There was slow and gentle nudge that you start getting from all sides until you have no space to move even your hand.At the near end of it, everyone was getting crushed, I saw a guy in front of me wincing in pain-my laptop was apparently hitting his feet and almost crushing it. But he just bore the pain and did not complain. My right hand was stuck at 60 degrees in the air, it was sandwiched in the process of trying to find a holding. For next 10 minutes it was like that.

I used to think that the automatic doors would deter people from packing too much,but it seemed to help people in doing just the same.Sometimes peoples' bags, hair or limbs come in the way. In such cases, the driver and guard who stand in front of gates interfere.They gently push the people in and let the doors close. Its like you push in last of the clothes sticking out of your suitcase and close it.

Once I saw a girl literally sticking to the door with both her palms on it.She was standing there in that posture silently. I thought this posture quite strange, until my friend later told me that her hair got stuck between the closing doors.

So these stuffed suitcase take people to their offices everyday in the busy subway lines. People do not mind being stuffed and they do not resist other peoples' coming in even though the Bogey is full.

This is contrast to Mumbai's trains where people come in not like Japanese tsunami, but like a storm. Japanese people come as tsunami, and in Mumbai - people 'storm in'.