Travelling for a living in Mumbai

At my workplace, we travel to different centres to take classes. So, it's likely that a faculty starts her week in Dadar, is in Thane the next day, in Churchgate on the third, and so on. In Mumbai, this is commonplace. Travel is so ingrained in the city's psyche that otherwise frightful distances are considered routine here. The city keeps stretching northward, with my company having just opened a new centre in Dombivali.

I don't mind the travel so much since it gives me, and the organisation, a chance to spread our name far and wide. An instructor will undergo any misery so long it affords him an opportunity to "connect" with the target demographic. Otherwise sedate teachers are known to draw upon hidden sources of energy if given an opportunity to speak at citywide workshops swarming with students.

Now, all of us faculty have a parent centre where we report, and for the travel to and from the parent to other centres, we are reimbursed. Simple, right? Not in the least. The process is so wearying that one would rather pay from one's own pocket than risk upsetting the delicate processes of money disbursal.

There are rules. One cannot claim more than Rs 100 for a day. Until the Metro came along that meant all manner of hassles. To travel between Andheri, where I live, and Ghatkopar, which is located parallelly on the Central Line, the budget did not permit me to take an auto, the fare being Rs 140. I would need to come down to Dadar by train and then switch to the Central Line (Dadar has both western and central stations), and travel all the way back north to Ghatkopar.

For an organisation whose turnover runs into crores, this kind of miserliness makes one flinch. The counsellor added to the injury by telling me about the time when a faculty member had protested the policy at a townhall meeting at the head office. The CEO had brushed him off, saying: "Come on, don't complain about a few hundred bucks." Exactly. Then why don't you, Mr Ivory Tower, roll down the glasses of your Mercedes (he does possess one) and throw some spare change our way?

Eventually, I decided to operate under the "rules". (That's Human Psychology 101. A person will not turn down a freebie even if it has inconvenience written all over it.) Sending mails to HR to amend their reimbursement policy is futile, not to mention tedious. So, one just claims as much as one can and makes do the rest from one's pocket. And yes, even the due claim is delayed interminably because the higher-ups have a gazillion conditions for issuing petty cash, which is what cash for operational issues is called.

A year ago, there was this scandal at one of the centres. The centre manager was recruiting students for classroom programmes but registering them as correspondence students. The substantial difference in the fee went you-know-where. The system ran swimmingly for months until one of the students landed at the head office for counselling. In the aftermath, the policy was changed to transfer all enrolment money into the head office (HO) account.

Consequently, the centres are at the mercy of the HO. I have not received my reimbursements for the past two months because they, the lords in their august chambers, have been stingy with disbursing petty cash. Hardly petty, you would think. We have had to pay the tea guy from our own pockets and everything - from printouts to snacks - has been vastly curtailed in the absence of ready cash.

Now, I need hardly complain. I am still lucky enough to have to travel mostly between Dadar and Ghatkopar on a Rs 45-first-class ticket one way. There are faculty members who travel between, say, Thane and Dadar. The first-class train fare for the journey comes to Rs 90. That's one way, so if they have to go and return, the only option - if they wish to not exceed the reimbursement quota - is to take the second-class. As for the conditions inside a second-class compartment during peak hours, let's just say they make what Spanish matadors do look like child's play.

There was this one time when I had to be some place urgently and did not have the time to buy a first-class ticket. I decided to board the second-class, taking a chance on not being caught for ticketless travel. I needn't have bothered. I tried getting into the second-class compartment of three consecutive trains, unsuccessfully (you need to be there to understand), before I decided to buy a first-class ticket and save me the blushes.

That will be the fate of Vinaya ma'am who often travels to Thane. She lives in Chembur, which is on the Harbour Line, so the only option she has is to take the train that connects the Harbour and Central Lines. It's all so complex it's enough to require a software from Infosys. She will just, she tells me, take the bus and get it over with.

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The author has switched too many jobs in the past and hopes he can hold down this one