It has been over 20 years that we have been travelling on the Mumbai local regularly and when the Mayank Lohar case happened (22-year-old stabbed in a running train), the general sentiment was “That’s just how Mumbai is”. But as a person who has largely benefited from the kindness of strangers in this city for almost 36 years, we weren’t in agreement with it.

That kindness is the reason we can still go home to our mum, 15 years after she collapsed while boarding a local at Seawoods station. She was trying to board a train to CSMT — then VT — but fainted right on the precipice of the platform. A nurse shoved Mum into the safety of the train. Passengers tried to call us, but this reporter was then in college, with the phone on silent mode. That same nurse was the one who took Mum to the hospital. Luckily, everything was okay, and we brought her home the next day. To this day, we never turn our phone on silent and will never forget what the nurse did for us that day.