The Indian Railways: A Lifeline that became a Landmine

When the first railway track was laid down in India in 1853 between Mumbai and Thane, it spelt an occasion for celebration. Suddenly, the country was experiencing a momentous industrial high. The Times of India reported this historical event hailing the dawn of a new age in British-governed India as quoted here: “Nothing could’ve been more magnificent than the train of 20 enormous carriages with their three stupendous engines, all spick and span new, with the most perfect forms engineering could suggest, and the most beautiful tints taste could impart, occupying a line from first to last on close to four hundred feet.”

Indians were now invited to be part of the newfound luxury of covering long distances comfortably, seamlessly and elegantly, nursing a ‘cuppa’ while they rode to their destination, without getting their feet muddy, their belongings misplaced or their addresses mixed up. If there are notable inclusions of progress that the British regime ushered into a country reduced to serving as a colony under its persuasive, dominant and monopolistic rule, one of them had to be this. To quote a British official who commented on the occasion of the Indian railway’s inauguration, “This was not the triumph of nation over nation, of race over race, of man over his fellow man. It was the triumph of mind, of matter, of patience and perseverance.”

A lot has happened since then, to put it mildly. The British ouster from its colonial stronghold in the Indian sub-continent, the partition of India, the assassination of Gandhi, the composition of the Constitution of Free India, the UN charter, the introduction of birth contraceptives, boybands, Indipop, item songs, India’s tryst with the global economy, the internet, Game Of Thrones….and so on.

The world is now a writhing seven-legged creature stuck in a claustrophobic oyster. Even the length and breadth of the seven continents cannot keep in check the burgeoning population that it breeds. With China to transfer the title of ‘World’s most populated country’ to its closest competitor India (as soon as 2022 if the experts are to be believed), there definitely seems to be a tidal wave ahead that India must finally grapple and come to terms with. Overpopulation! A word that has clearly crippled the progress that India deserves and has always been striving towards. Our country is a land of contradictions and for every scheming despot, corrupt politician, bigot, religious zealot and serial criminal, there is an equally laudable scientist, literary figure, astute leader, honest farmer, meritorious intelligentsia, accomplished artist or nation-loving martyr worth raising a salute to.  The antics and blunders of the miscreants however often mar and besmirch the laurels of the achievers.  So for every step that this country has taken in the direction of development, it has also dragged in disaster due to the lackadaisical, irresponsible and insouciant nature of the aam aadmi.

The aam aadmi or the common man wants progress but is quick to misuse and misinterpret it. The common man wants a free public toilet but is too pre-occupied to clean up his mess, he wants protests against discrimination but is too proud to personally fraternise with ‘the others’, he wants financial aid but is too short-sighted to realise that a wedding can be a small-budget affair. So yes, coming back to the railways and how they became the modern motif of civilization on the move, steam may have been replaced by diesel and electricity when it comes to fuelling the wheels of locomotion in the current century but even the rail tracks have become the new utilitarian means to innovative ends.

If you have ever lived in Mumbai, the birthplace of this locomotive landmark, railway tracks are often the hotbed of activity of all kinds. People have discovered new ways of making them multi-purpose in their functional existence. Just so that the government doesn’t feel that using so much of the country’s arterial landscape to simply laying tracks for trains is not worth its coffers’ expenditure, they are used for every other mundane purpose as well- performing daily ablutions, jaywalking as a time-effective way to bridge the gap between platforms and as a recent tragedy would indicate, as extended grounds for spectators to spread out in to behold a visual and aural display of festivities.

After all, why must this absolutely wonderful manifestation of human genius be relegated to being a mere pathway for the urban transport system that it was originally meant for?

Illegal encroachment and the Indian psyche of ‘chalta hai’ means that we are unstoppable when it comes to not abiding by a standard code of safety. How else do you explain having to fine people who sit on top of trains to commute to work daily, or those who hang out of doors and windows, precariously holding onto a fellow-passenger’s shirt, jumping out of moving trains or the lakhs of people who continue to cross the rail tracks everyday ‘to get to the other side’ and save some precious minutes of their lives, day after day? You cannot refute the undeniable truth of the matter which is that the common man has a certain nonchalance when it comes to protecting his own self from imminent danger even when it is staring him right in the face. What is this devil-may-care attitude that makes us stand in front of a wild animal every day and then one day blame the carnivore for making a prey out of the so-called ‘innocent’ victim?

In a city in North India that is still reeling in the aftermath of a recent rail tragedy that hit it, Dussehra celebrations are held every year with hundreds of spectators congregating at the designated spot to revel in its glory. To have them spill over onto the rail tracks is an annual occurrence and not a one-off, as clarified by local residents themselves. The incident has snowballed into a political blame game with each participating player trying to identify one scapegoat to nail on the wall- the train driver, the local police, the railway administration or the ruling state government. One can’t help but wonder if an accusing finger is being wagged at the trains for running on schedule on a track meant for it. My question is, why must the common man be policed to abide by rules for his own safety- why must we be told to wear helmets, not drink and drive, not take speed near a school, not play a loudspeaker near a silent zone, not park our cars in the middle of the road, not throw a banana peel on the footpath, not run in to a moving train….and who is to be blamed for the loss of lives when such accidents occur day after day?

I wouldn’t want to stand on a railway track to witness a public display of fireworks, even if someone paid me to do it. It doesn’t take a wise person to make that decision. Unfortunately, common sense is a sense uncommon to the common man in India. As we continue to try and find the cat who must be billed for a crime, self-perpetuated by the common man himself, the railways that were originally meant to be a lifeline to boost the country’s economy, is being turned in to a demonic landmine that will spew debris on everyone involved, in its wake.

Driving a point two feet deep

I generally think we don’t give our feet the respect they deserve most of the time. Yes, we go shopping for shoes all the time, pride ourselves on those 22 pairs of footwear we may use to drape them up, make sure we make pedicure appointments and are happily dolling them up in a thousand shades of nail paint (if you are the fairer sex mostly) but really is that all? I mean what about all those times when we end up using not-so-flattering adjectives to refer to feet- smelly, dirty and unholy? Remember all those times when your Mom told you off when you touched your books accidentally with your foot? Or how it is generally considered disrespectful to sit with your feet up on a chair? Poor feet, like they don’t deserve to chill! To cut a long story short, this ill-treatment and the constant pressure of being inferior is the bane of our feet’s measly lives. One can almost associate it with a waging class war among the different body parts where the brain commands supremacy for enjoying the topmost position in the physiological hierarchy of the human anatomy followed by the heart, stomach, the pelvis and then finally, way down below those lowly, neglected and down-trodden feet. One can actually explain the ancient caste system that our country has been practising for a thousand years by depicting it through our various body parts and why not? The Brahmins have always looked upon themselves to serve as the society’s intellect and conscience, primary functions of the brain. The Kshatriyas are the chest- denoting valour and a heart swelling with pride. The Vaishnavas can be the hand, dealing in the trade of goods and services or exchange of hands. The Shudras are the feet, often allowed in public only when covered and hidden, and relegated to unjust terms such as ‘dirty’ and ‘unholy’. 

All these metaphorical explorations aside, I myself realised the true worth of my feet only when they became dysfunctional through a couple of minor accidents. So if you have ever had a foot fractured you would know what I am talking about. I had the misfortune to crack not one, not two but three toes in between the biggest and smallest toes in my left foot not so long ago. Not only did this translate into an excruciating pain in the foot every time I even dared to land its sole on any surface but it also meant wrapping it up in bright blue plaster that would render it immobile and pretty much out of action for a month. Of course, accidents aren’t deliberately acted upon and I would have never intentionally hurt the poor foot but the fact that it was now in abject misery stupefied me. It had never really struck me that I would be dependent on a crutch or someone to hold me up to attend to nature’s call. How I had taken it for granted that I can walk thanks to my foot! The accident enabled me to get some perspective two feet deep. 

I was forced to acknowledge the worth of the two most underestimated parts of my body- the reason why we are able to stay rooted to our earthly existence and why we don’t simply topple off. Together, they suddenly struck me as the sheer foundation which enables us to balance and speed up our pace of life as per our preference. Finally, it dawned on me that if not for our feet, we would be stationary, stagnant, stilted, stunted, unable to mobilise our energies and our thoughts through our actions or movement, unable to walk the talk. Suddenly, a deep sense of gratitude flowed through me for this precious gift we are born with and it struck me how we are so indifferent to those who are differently abled- moving through life without these gifts and yet, doing as well as our so-called normal selves if not better. 

Once my feet were back in action healed from the fracture, I felt like a baby reborn. I caressed my recently healed foot, imagining the newly grown tissues, the throbbing nerves, the delicate veins that fueled it and the gentle bones that traced their own intricate architecture within this external encasing. There it was, my foot reborn. I could stand again, dance again, exercise again and even jump for joy like my three-year-old kid. I knew I was blessed, privileged and lucky to be whole again. Never again would I doubt the significance of my foot, neglect its utility and function or take it for granted. 

So while riding in the metro one day, I happened to look down at my feet, and remember feeling so happy that I could stand like this. This was the kind of revelation the fractured foot had made to me, how lightly I had thought I could take life, standing on the balls of my feet when actually that mere act meant the flexing of bones, muscles and nerves so that I could assume such a stance. I looked at the pearly white nails and reminded myself that it was time to coat some paint over them to make them look better and more beautiful. Suddenly, though the train lurched and I was pushed back to the world around me, only to experience a rush of pain concentrated on the big toe of my right foot. I looked down, unable to detect any visible injury but the pain worsened with every passing minute. I looked up to see the poker face of a teenage girl, guiltless and without remorse. She looked like she couldn’t care less that she had just nearly mangled the toe of a perfectly healthy person just a few seconds ago. I looked down at my foot again and it throbbed with self-pity this time, pained further at the sheer insouciance of the perpetrator of the injury. I wondered how people had become so rude in this generation of teens, not caring to even apologise for an accident it caused, even though unintentionally. All the way back home, the night of the accident and the one after that, pain coursed through the toe, disabling my body from concentrating on sleep or work. I applied balm on it, creamed its surface with an anti-injury ointment and wondered if I had experienced a second fracture- this time on the right foot? Was this a sign from God that I was to be punished for some vile disservice I had done to my limbs waist down? 

All I knew is the terrible pain gave way to the gradual uprooting of the injured toenail. Who knew some unruly teenager’s stamping on my foot would lead to this mishap? So now recently jolted into looking at my right foot in a new light, I am seeing it through the uneven, misshapen, unsure growth of a new-formed nail. As I  marvel at the regenerative strength of the human body, I still travel by metro, I still savour the fact that I have two functional feet albeit one with a weird-looking toenail, and I celebrate my right to free locomotion all the time. After all, life is all about enriching one’s perspective of survival, one foot at a time.