The Overcrowded train: Every Ghetto has a different name but....

It is quite amazing how easy it is for our focus to shift to third world countries when we think about poverty, inner city life, quest for survival; all the ingredients which encapsulate the typical rat race existence. However, believe it or not, there is a ''ghetto'' in all of us - particularly the so called industrialised nations.

Casting our minds back to the Hurricane Katrina situation in New Orleans (August 2005) , the aftermath of which was a paradox of immense proportions, when the United States- usually at the forefront of giving food supplies to famished regions in some parts of the developing world – almost became a recipient of supplies at the brink of help. Why? Well, it took a natural disaster to expose this superpower's 'ghetto' side to the entire world, with graphic images of looting and desperation in New Orleans, which we were normally accustomed to only seeing in poor countries of the world.

Just the other day, I took a day off work and other projects to go down to oxford street in London- a destination I personally consider as the United Kingdom's heart of tourism .Deciding to take the underground train from St.Pancreas International station to Oxford Circus, I was relishing the thought of actually having a fun day out and not the pressured type which usually characterised my day to day schedules. On the train, I was a bit taken aback by the high capacity of commuters on board, and no sooner had the journey commenced, than the reality of the stuffy carriage dawned on me- making me want to thrust my neck out the train´s window whilst still in bullet-speed motion, just to get some fresh air. Though appreciating the typical hustle and bustle of a weekday in Central London, this particular train was so congested, even those of us standing still struggled for standing spaces! A classical case of survival for the fittest in London. For a city that boasts alongside New York and Tokyo, arguably the best rail transport network in the world, I found this episode a rather perturbing experience. Like an Olympic event for 'air-intake' competition on the train, this was in no way funny!

Anyway, being of an African descent, with past similar experiences in that part of the world -where it is not uncommon having up to hundreds of commuters squashed in a tiny bus-this London experience should normally pass as a piece of cake right? Wrong. Because no sooner the train arrived at its first stop, with an initial sigh of relief that some 'lucky' passengers would be alighting, my joy instantly became short-lived when only two people got off and close to seven more passengers came on board adding to our over congestion misery .So here we go again.

Oxford street, which was my intended destination was by now only some stops away, on a day I found so far quite interesting . If this scenario could pass for an Agatha Christie-inspired movie , plot wise, it should be called 'Survival on the London Express'. Just as the train was approaching the Oxford circus stop, with me deep down in my mind thanking the lord the nightmare on rail would soon be over, then came a brief moment of comical relief. As if on cue, a dishevelled looking young man came in from the next carriage. Wearing a grotesque looking suit which any of the onlookers could be forgiven for thinking had never touched water in years let alone a drycleaner, and noticing a few of my co- passengers covering their noses with the unannounced introduction of the latest character in this train epic, our guest remained unruffled as he clearly had a mission of his own. In a sharp but croaky voice- and taking off his hat which at this point had become an improvised tool for his charity collections- the gentleman started, in his London cockney accent, by saying ´´Sorry for being a nuisance mates, any small change you can give this fella will do just fine for breakfast.'

For me, that was the icing on the cake for an uncomfortable yet hilarious journey, because the irony of that day's experience is that nowadays, when we turn on our television sets, all the media tend to focus on is some malnourished kid in Somalia, covered in flies with his or her hands out in anticipation of food relief, when the so called industrialised nations have dirty linens of their own- you only need to look in the right places to spot them.

No doubt, the African experience is a whole lot more dire compared to the developed countries, the crux of the matter however remains that although every ''ghetto'' might have a different name, psychologically, they're still pretty much all the same.

The Oxford English dictionary defines 'ghetto' as ''part of a city lived in by a minority group'', however its contextual usage in this article is to depict the uphill struggle of everyday people that seldom make the headlines in some so called ''developed'' countries of the world.