One cannot help wonder why there are so many accidents on the railway tracks in India. We like to blame the government, politicians, civil servants, railway authorities and anyone else we can think of who is remotely connected to that massive network of trains. But we rarely, if ever, blame ourselves.
True, there are any number of unmanned railway crossings in India. But aren’t there people even at manned railway crossings who stoop under the bar and make a dash for the other side with their two-wheelers?
There are many railway stations where, if one is taking an elderly or infirm passenger along in a wheelchair or trundling one’s luggage in a cart, there is no choice but to go across the tracks because there are no ramps. In the old days, there used to be small stations where the entire train emptied itself and passengers had no choice but to rush across the railway line to get to the other side and catch their connecting trains. (We have done all this along with all the rest of those passengers.)
So, isn’t it incumbent on the person who is taking this risk to look both ways before traipsing over the rails? Why should any man, woman or child walk across any of those unmanned railway crossings without first looking to the left and to the right? Shouldn’t a bus or car or any other wheeled vehicle at an unmanned crossing pause to check whether a train is in sight before pushing down on the accelerator?
We do this at every street corner, we do it at zebra crossings on the road, we teach our children this simple rule when they are in kindergarten. But with that behemoth of a train, which cannot brake to a halt in seconds, we do not bother with such niceties. Don’t we value our lives?
As a frequent train traveller, with countless rail miles to my credit, I have watched in dismay as people sauntered across the lines a few feet before an oncoming train. They cannot wait for the train to pass. They are in a hurry; but they do not run. They saunter along as if they have not a care in the world. Definitely not a care about the train that could flatten them if they happened to trip or a heel on their shoe got stuck somewhere ... any of those terrible scenarios we encounter in the movies.
Then, with my heart in my mouth, I have also observed from the window of a train as groups, pairs, friends, singles — young, old, male, female — walk along the railway lines, stepping from one wooden ‘sleeper’ to the other, or maybe trying out their body’s balance mechanism by walking on the rails themselves. They don’t seem concerned enough to look behind them. Just as they would on a ‘footpath’ at the side of the road, they listen to music, they talk on their cell phones, they talk amongst themselves earnestly, they laugh, they push each other in jest — oh, yes, they have a jolly good time. Provided something enormous doesn’t come up from behind (or even from in front — they are that oblivious of their surroundings), and mow them down.
It comes as no surprise then that almost every day we read in the newspapers about someone or the other being felled by a train — recently, of someone being so absorbed in taking a ‘selfie’ that the noise of the oncoming train was not heard ...
It is heartbreaking to think of lives cut short, of families left behind in pain. Are we really untrainable when it comes to being safe with our trains?
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
