They are often touted as Mumbai's lifeline, as these suburban trains bring millions of commuters from suburbs as far as 60-70 kilometres to their offices and businesses located in the central business district. But it has also been a reason for grief to many as death and injury lurks at every step while these trains go about their humongous and unwieldy daily grind of gorging and disgorging thousands of passengers at various stations.
Nearly 8-10 commuters die on a daily basis while boarding or alighting the coaches, which are crammed four times their capacity, or while crossing the tracks. But these deaths rarely rise above being a mere statistic. And we all shrug it off saying life is cheap! The only time the death in trains become 'breaking news' is when there is a bomb blast or if a certain gentleman from across the border decides to do some target practice at one of these stations.
However on Friday the city and the country were jolted out of its festive Ayudha Pooja stupor by a stampede in Elphinstone Road station, a low profile mill district which of late has metamorphosed into a corporate hub.
For those not familiar with Mumbai suburban rail network, the city has three rail lines - Western, Central and Harbour. Western and Central lines intersect at two points and Elphinstone Road on the Western line is one of the options for commuters to change to Central line, as it is linked to nearby Parel station on the Central line by a foot overbridge.
The other option is Dadar station which has platforms catering to both the railway lines. However, the volume of crowd at Dadar is far too intimidating and it calls for the strength, aggressiveness and endurance of a rugby player to board and alight trains.
Its too early to find the actual reason for this calamity and newspapers are still flush with 'eyewitness' accounts and political slanging matches played, often on social media with hashtag jousts.
From the newspaper accounts it appears that Elphinstone Road and Parel stations continue to be interconnected with a lone overbridge that is barely eight feet wide and was built decades ago when these two stations were catering to a fraction of the commuters they handle now.
This is despite the fact that the transformation of Elphinstone Road and Lower Parel as an extended central business district has been a work in progress since mid 1990s. Those were the early days of gentrification of mill districts and I remember when a well known advertising agency shifted its office from upscale Nariman Point to Lower Parel, it was acutely coy about the down market location of its new premises and mentioned it as 'Worli East' in its invitation.
However, the Railways remained oblivious to large scale shifting of corpoate offices to these areas, most of them in order to cut costs, or the burgeoning number of skyscrapers being built to accommodate them. The rising number of office goers and the resulting congestion in these stations no way stirred them from their Rip Van Winkle slumber.
As the overbridge was woefully inadequate, many started taking a chance of crossing the tracks, thereby risk getting run over by trains.
But the railways chose the easy way out to treat the symptoms and not the disease. It fenced off the tracks to prevent trespassing, but did nothing to ease the passengers' difficulty in moving from one station to another. It was like putting a patient in quarantine, but providing him no treatment whatsoever and leaving him to the mercy of fate.
Hence even a mundane task of commuting to and from offices located near these stations has become a high-risk, life threatening affair.
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Think of Mumbai and the picture of milling crowds trooping in and out of trains comes to my mind. I guess for this 'maximum city' it has been a constant for at least three to four decades. Moreover with the city eating into adjoining suburbs and villages, the residents are spending a good part of their day (or for that matter their lives) in these trains.
Back in early nineties when I was staying there, these trains were bursting at the seams and then I had thought that it couldn't get any worse. But on a recent visit to the city I was in for a jaw-dropping surprise. Even at 11 pm on a Sunday it was difficult to get beyond the doors of a Virar local at Bandra station. The Western line travel seemed a mission impossible exercise - though mercifully I did find some toehold while travelling at the Central and Harbour lines.
Whether it was due to the advancing age or sheer lack of practice, I was woefully lagging behind the nimble-footed Mumbaikars in making a dash at those trains. After three-four unsuccessful attempts, thoughts of taking and auto or bus cross my mind, but I banish them after considering the agonizing traffic snarls. Almost the whole city seems to be dug up for some flyover or the other.
The trains have undergone a makeover from the nineties. Gone are the days of drab maroon and yellow compartments with small windows. The current wide-bodied bogies with larger windows seem less claustrophobic and more colourful. Most of them now have in-train public address system announcing the next station. But amid the saturation crowd one feels little inclined to appreciate all that. Probably it may be of interest only to someone like me on a short visit.
Another redeeming feature is the ticket vending machines and smart card. With them one can bid goodbye to long queues. Back in the 90s I remember sweating it out in those queues, which often used to snake out to the car parks or even adjoining streets and tempers would rise if any particular queue was perceived as 'slow' or if someone tried to sneak in. Really used to wonder as to how those railway clerks coped with such high-voltage pressure while dispensing tickets, especially in eternally-crowded stations like Dadar. This particular station had (and still retains) the uncanny ability to populate any train that comes its way and at any hour!
My cousin had lent me his smart card and I found it quite easy to use and was a great time saver. However, the only downside was the moment I was done with it, I used to get surrounded by people with cash at hand asking “bhaiya, please get me a ticket also”. The sentiment of altruism does come to mind - but no room for so many.
While trying to meet up with a friend he told me to take the 'skywalk' on the Bandra East. Left me wondering what the Dickens that meant. After alighting at the station I climbed on the overbridge on the East side and it seemed as if the station has developed some huge tentacles. Those longish foot overbridges helped commuters avoid crossing those clogged roads adjacent to stations. Later I discovered many other suburban stations too had it, though it was conspicuously absent at Dadar, where probably it is most required.
The city seems perpetually on the edge, thanks to umpteen terror attacks. It gets almost paranoiac while travelling in trains, the target of some of those attacks. In the stations there are frequent announcements in Marathi, Hindi and English warning the commuters to avoid touching any unfamiliar object and requesting them to alert the police. Within the trains too these announcements keep coming ad nauseum. It all gives one an anything-untoward-can-happen-any-moment feeling. Makes one look gingerly at the motley assortment of bags, suitcases and lunch boxes placed on the luggage shelf of the train and pray to Almighty that no RDX lurks in any of them.
Back in the 90s it was not all that hunky dory either. The city was scarred by post-Babri Masjid demolition communal riots and a deadly 1993 serial blasts. The image of Mumbaikars being obsessed with the dhanda of making money, with little interest in politics got severely dented. Pehle aisa kabhi nahin hua, used to be the constant refrain among long-time residents and newspaper columnists had begun comparing the city with Beirut. Those were perhaps the early days of terror and with hardly any lessons learnt, these bloodbaths keep happening with agonizing regularity.
