Five year old Nandini was excited about the festival, the day started with auspiciousness all around. She took bath and sat for prayers with everyone, she had heard the stories about Ram and Ravan from everyone and she had just got to know not so long ago that on this day Ravan is burnt to the ground, as a practice that has been followed and become part of our culture. She was curious and wanted to go see the Ravan on flames. She was wearing new clothes today, and with her happy and small family of four she went to see the Ravan burn. The ground was crowded and on the entrance was a flex board with faces of people who campaign for elections in the area, and warm wishes on this auspicious festival of the victory of good over evil were written. The effigy was set on fire and with that started the cracking sound of the crackers and fireworks. People started to move away from the humongous and large effigy of Ravan. Nandini on the other hand was looking at all this from outside the ground along with her family and so many other families. They were all watching the Ravan burn to the ground and little did they know that by the time this is all going to end they are all destined to a few big losses.
When the effigy of Ravan was burning at its peak, before she could compare this to the image she had picturised in her mind a train comes running in the middle of all these smiles and auspiciousness. Nandini was cut into pieces and so were others. Many died and many were injured.
The driver of the train could do nothing. The train was at 91 kmph and this route had the limits of 140 kmph. It takes almost 650 meters of distance for a train to stop from there. There was a green signal and no restrictions and when he realised what was happening, it was too late. He tried applying brakes, the train had slowed down to 68 kmph but then, it was already too late. He tried stopping it after the accident but the guard signaled him to not to. The guard mentioned that people were agitated and were running behind the train and this may result in a few more mishaps and this may take a violent turn. The driver continued while he informed the authorities about this accident and the train was stopped at the next station. He could have applied emergency brakes, but emergency brake at that speed would probably have derailed the train and this would eventually have turned out to be a much worse situation. No good human wakes up in the morning with a mission to kill and hurt people. He is going to suffer the most, probably all his life, knowing to have taken more than 50 lives. This is going to a be torture for him.
It was an accident. Nobody willingly gets involved in one. It would have been avoided had people behaved more sensibly and not stood on the tracks. Not everything can be blamed on the government, organisers or authorities. Sometimes the victims are themselves the culprits. The ground had a 5 feet boundary wall still they chose to go beyond the walls and ended up being on the tracks.
This was a horrific incident and we should pay our regards to the families who lost their loved ones and pray for them in their miseries. This is also the time when we should start to be more sensible and responsible citizens, and understand “What is right?”
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