I worked for 20 years in different Corporates. All the time my offices were far away from my residence and it would be ideally 1.5-hour minimum one-way travel to work, in a day I would spent around 3.5 hrs travelling to and fro work. By the time I would reach home back I would be exhausted. If you live in metro cities in India and you are working, then this is a normal story for majority. The travelling would be more draining and exhausting then the actual work in office.
Most of the Corporates are based in commercial zones which are far away from residential zones in India, especially the IT companies, they need big spaces and those are available only in the outer city limits or far away from the main city areas, so there is no choice but to travel if one has to work.
Till 10 years back there was no concept of work from home in the companies that I worked for so it was like spending the whole day in office and in travelling. The last company that I worked for Accenture had a work from home provision and that was such a relief. I would on and off opt for work from home and those days it would be so relaxing and the day was also productive. When we have very long distances to travel to work a lot of energy goes there, and by the time you reach office you already feel drained out which also impacts the work.
Mumbai rains are also very nasty at times, on such days it becomes all the more challenging to travel. Many times, there would be train cancellations and then the 3.5 hrs travelling would also go upto 4 to 5 hrs. After reaching home, there is barely anything that I could do. I would just spend some time with my Son, have my dinner and go off to sleep.
In India, working class people spend their whole life like this and the quality of life is so low when there are such circumstances. The work from home options that now the corporates are thinking are seriously a blessing for many. Even if 2 days in a week one opts for that it brings in so much quality time in life. If you have some extra time at hand in a day you can pursue some sports or some of your hobby and that also in turn will make a difference in your work output.
Looking back at those days I feel they were such tough times of life and now it is all together a different scene.
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Sound's like that's an Asian Thing Only... Being a student can relate how exhausting it become when you travel an hour or so just to reach there after facing traffic and all those Noisy horns etc.
Heard about Mumbai train becomes so overloaded at some point... Well, Hopefully in coming years working from home will be a possible thing or much better way to cop these.
I have seen similar culture in European countries also, where people prefer staying away in small towns but they do travel for work long distance. The difference is that their travels is easy where as travel in India is madness :-)
You are right, Local trains in Mumbai are craziness to next level. I get scared looking at people sometimes hanging out.
Unfortunately, the whole life of the working class all over the world goes like this and the quality of life is very low when there are such situations. Working hard does not add quality to life. The important thing is to earn more with less effort.
On a daily basis when 2 to 3 hours go away in travel the quality of life is surely very low and this is the story of many common people and majority do not have much of a choice.