I have been feeling insecure to travel by local trains everyday. I have to take the 8:14 a.m. fast from Kandivli and get off at Dadar. I don’t have a choice. I have to be at work by 9:30 a.m. if not, my boss will seek a replacement. Similar thoughts run through a working class Mumbaikar everyday. Traveling by local trains during the wee hours of morning is nothing but a war time exercise. An average traveler is scared for his life and safety.

In 1853 British laid the first railway between Mumbai and Thane. They continued their own contribution until 1947. August 1947 we were ‘free’.

After that I hear that the next major railway project was the Konkan railway sometime in later nineties or early twenties. The continued lethargy of the Congress berthed railway ministers is shameful.

I say the Congress because they were in the office more than 90% of the time post independence and have shown a record of not learning from mistakes in many departments.

Ever since I was a traveling student I have seen accidents and accident struck bodies waiting to be attended n platforms. This sight used to scare me. There was an instance when a woman passenger in my compartment had fallen off a running train and the rest of the passengers acted so used to the incident.

I remember another shocking incident when in early hours of the morning a dead body or seriously injured one was loaded in a first class ladies compartment that was run over by the train I was traveling in. The women in the compartment were in a state of shock.

I was going for my Engineering math exam. I returned to India last year. Though being in Pune saves me a lot of this horror now, I do travel to Mumbai to visit my parents.

On one such evening I went on Platform No.3 at the Dadar station. Like a normal Mumbaikar I was running to get the train on the platform while it was still. The moment I got off the bridge I saw the indicator was on Virar fast. I waited for the train to move. It didn’t for sometime.

It was a usual 6:30 p.m. evening train. It was packed to its capacity and yet overflowing as a sign of careless and immune Indian railway system. Finally it did move for a distance of 2 feet and then suddenly everybody around the second class Men’s compartment yelled.

Thankfully the motorman heard the cry and stopped the train or may be it was some sensitive passenger who pulled the chain. One someone was another victim. He had fallen in the gap between the compartment footboard and railway platform.

The platform no.3 gathered around the spot for sometime. Something happened between then. I had no guts to see what that was but I am sure it was distorted human body in blood pool surrounded of some spectators and witnesses to the incident.

And I said to myself, this still happens in India. Life in Mumbai has become so cheap that we need to cut throats to get to our destinations on time. The under built platforms lack of trains with people traveling on footboards and train tops are still a reality.

People are traveling in utmost inhuman conditions and I do not see any human rights agitation. Politicians like Govinda and Sanjay Nirupam have made train travel an election issue and let some more people to be run over and entangled in wheels that are so to say the life lines of Mumbai.

It shameful that an average Mumbaikar sees one of these incidents almost everyday and yet there has been no change in the system. I then find what Raj Thackeray says is not completely wrong. The system in Maharashtra has allowed so many illegal immigrants to build slums and throng in the name of votes that the system is not ready to take the excess burden in every sense.

Every resource is in shortfall and people are struggling for a piece. Every pre-election we again look at our ‘promising politicians’ to make a change. Shameful enough, Sanjay Nirupam who was accidentally elected from the Mumbai North constituency, thanks to MNS again, did not utter a word when Mamta Di forgot to mention enough for Mumbai local travelers. Mind you he had promised this in his election campaign.

As I continue to write for this cause, I wonder how many more lives will this system need to make a change and get us to safe and human traveling conditions. We little realize that the travel by Mumbai local trains during the wee hours of morning breaches our basic human rights of right to move free and safe in our own country.