Watch the mesmerising frenzy of Mumbai’s local trains captured in this time lapse video
The train network almost never sleeps or even slows down.
For the 7.5 million of passengers who use Mumbai's local trains every day, there's probably no poetry in the daily hustle. Nor for the many million more who see, hear and pass by the network often described as the city's lifeline. And despite its claim to that status, at least nine people die on the tracks every day, as this India Spend report from 2015 claims.
And yet, the whole thing can be mesmerising, as this time-lapse video made at Charni Road station in South Mumbai reveals. Says its maker Ashwin Nagpal in a post accompanying the video, understating the figure, “Six million people travel by train daily in Mumbai. That's equivalent to the population of Israel.”
Although Mumbai locals have featured in countless films, documentaries and web videos, this one has an oddly compelling quality. Perhaps because, by speeding up the video, it re-establishes just how fast and furious, to use a cliché, life in the city is.