Secondary School Level

In this day and age, traffic jams in any and every city is a common sight. To escape the congestion and pollution of Mumbai we were on our way to Uran in a hired car for a picnic last Sunday. We had gone way past the suburban towns when straight ahead of us I saw a massive traffic jam, something I least expected so far out of the city. Soon our car stood bumper to bumper with a long river of vehicles that extended as far as eye could see.

I was wondering what happened? Was it a big accident? But everyone was looking quite impatiently to the right. What was it? got curious, I got permission from Dad, got out of the car and walked ahead. Soon I discovered that we were held up owing to a railway crossing ahead. A train was expected which was obviously late in coming.

The gate at the railway crossing must have been closed for quite a while because on my side of the gate there were at least a thousand vehicles. A similar number of them was probably on the other side too. The street hawkers from a village close-by were quick to take full advantage of the situation selling from glasses of water to cut fruit and even tea and cold drinks!

At long last a distant sound of a train whistle was heard.

There was a visible sigh of relief and people started rushing back to their vehicles. I waited to watch the train go by. It was a goods train plodding along at a laboriously slow pace. I started counting the carriages. Wow! there were eighty-three of them no wonder it was going so slow.

A few minutes after the train had passed, the gateman opened the gates. It was like opening the floodgates. The traffic just surged forward. Within ten minutes the traffic was clear and the place looked as deserted as a countryside road should look. We also continued on our way to Uran. Believe me, that day I enjoyed the scene at the railway crossing more than the picnic.