This is a two part documentary on the lives of people working or affected by the Mumbai railway.
We meet the people working on and for the railway. Be they railway drivers including the first female driver, the street children shining shoes to hawkers selling clothes and trinkets on the sly to the administrators and managers and the railway police in charge of security.
We see the importance of the railways to India and Mumbai generally, the perks of the job which includes job security, pension, free health care and subsidized accommodation in one of the more expensive major cities in the world.
Having travelled on a train in India I can appreciate the mayhem of an Indian train station and the buzz and atmosphere of long distance train travel as well as the magnificence of the grandiose Victoria Terminus in Mumbai.
The documentary is sprawling and riveting. We see train spotters from UK visiting and riding the trains, we see employees who want to be Bollywood stars, a son of a railway family now providing catering in the train and the top executives living in an exclusive estate.
The film is not without the quirk of the magic (or staginess) of documentary film making. It just so happens that the lady hawker we have been following illegally selling her wares gets caught in the train the day some undercover railway officers are out and about. She is sentenced by the poet cum human rights lawyer and Judge who also happens to be featured in the film.
We follow a street child who is saved by an ex-street child now making a successful living operating various businesses in and around the station but this belies the fact that many street children in Mumbai fall prey to more sinister people who are not so altruistic. In fact the street child himself turns to a care home in order to break out the cycle of begging/drugs/being stuck working as a shoe shine boy without getting a formal education.
Despite the manipulation of the footage this is a fascinating programme that en-captures the madness of Bombay railway and heady, scintillating city itself.
We meet the people working on and for the railway. Be they railway drivers including the first female driver, the street children shining shoes to hawkers selling clothes and trinkets on the sly to the administrators and managers and the railway police in charge of security.
We see the importance of the railways to India and Mumbai generally, the perks of the job which includes job security, pension, free health care and subsidized accommodation in one of the more expensive major cities in the world.
Having travelled on a train in India I can appreciate the mayhem of an Indian train station and the buzz and atmosphere of long distance train travel as well as the magnificence of the grandiose Victoria Terminus in Mumbai.
The documentary is sprawling and riveting. We see train spotters from UK visiting and riding the trains, we see employees who want to be Bollywood stars, a son of a railway family now providing catering in the train and the top executives living in an exclusive estate.
The film is not without the quirk of the magic (or staginess) of documentary film making. It just so happens that the lady hawker we have been following illegally selling her wares gets caught in the train the day some undercover railway officers are out and about. She is sentenced by the poet cum human rights lawyer and Judge who also happens to be featured in the film.
We follow a street child who is saved by an ex-street child now making a successful living operating various businesses in and around the station but this belies the fact that many street children in Mumbai fall prey to more sinister people who are not so altruistic. In fact the street child himself turns to a care home in order to break out the cycle of begging/drugs/being stuck working as a shoe shine boy without getting a formal education.
Despite the manipulation of the footage this is a fascinating programme that en-captures the madness of Bombay railway and heady, scintillating city itself.
