Removing the dead to make a living on Mumbai’s rails
Indian youths, who live on railway station platforms and remove the dead from railroad tracks as one of their ways to eke out a living, look on beside a passenger carriage in Mumbai.–Photo by AP
MUMBAI: Ravi was seven when he ran away from home, taking a train from north India to the fabled metropolis of Mumbai.
More than 25 years later he is still at the platform, his life far from what he had in mind when he arrived: dealing with the dead as a way to make a living.
Removing bodies from the city’s creaking rail network, his is a gruesome task but he is desperate enough to do it.
Most are killed trying to cross the tracks – 6,000 a year die this way in Mumbai, according to one government study. A few commit suicide or fall onto the rails, others are hit by trackside poles as they hang out of overloaded trains.
The bodies can be so badly mutilated that it helps to get high first, explained Ravi.
“We sniff before we pick up the bodies, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to do it,” said the slight 35-year-old, who inhaled on a tatty cloth doused in addictive cleaning fluid even while he talked to AFP.
Sitting in an empty train coach within the grand neo-Gothic CST station, Ravi said he sniffed through three small bottles of the fluid every day, each costing three US cents and meant for cleaning office equipment.
Other platform dwellers drifted past as he spoke, also seemingly intoxicated.
Day-to-day they live off unofficial porter work, scraping by on passengers’ tips and doing odd jobs for the authorities.
But on occasions when a body or wounded person is spotted on the tracks near CST, station officials alert them to the unenviable task that can double their meagre daily income.
The men explained how they move victims from the tracks by stretcher, sometimes carrying them as far as a local hospital for inspection before their final journey to the mortuary – aside from those still alive.
“I used to get scared but now it’s a kind of habit,” Ravi said.
In return, these “stretcher coolies” each get around 100 to 150 rupees (two to three dollars).
Such arrangements exist in various parts of the country, in “almost a symbiotic relationship” between railway authorities and platform dwellers, said Mrinalini Rao, former head of the Railway Children charity in India.
“Massacre” on the railway
An official report in February estimated that almost 15,000 people are killed every year as they trespass unlawfully on India’s rail tracks, which lack proper safety and fencing — a figure the government described as a “massacre”.
About 6,000 of the deaths occur on Mumbai’s suburban network alone, the report said, while the city’s railway police figures show more than 2,310 deaths on the tracks so far this year.
The statistics show that willing body movers across the city are crucial.
In return for their help, officials “turn a blind eye to youth on the railways and they get to live on the premises,” Rao said.
V.A. Malegaonkar, chief spokesman for the Central Railway zone that operates CST, said they did have untrained “nominated coolies” at long-distance stations to help the police in stretcher duties.
“Their help is enlisted to transfer victims from the spot to the ambulance,” he said, adding that it was “very rare” the coolies would carry them all the way to the hospital.
But he doubted any link between the job and permission to live there.
“We certainly do not encourage people to stay on the railway premises, but in Mumbai and India as a whole, the railway station is always seen a very safe place for the common man,” he said.
“But I wouldn’t like vagrants and other people to make the railway platform their permanent home.”
Life by the tracks
Life is not what Ravi envisaged when, like countless other runaway children with small change and big dreams, he arrived in India’s financial capital and the home of Bollywood.
Surviving on leftover scraps at the station, he was picked up by police and put into a children’s home. A year later his brother came and took him out, and he lived in other parts of Mumbai before returning to life by the tracks.
“My addictions, my friends and my habits made me come back,” he said.
Thousands of children still arrive at the city’s stations every year, although figures are hard to record. Rao estimates 10 to 20 reach Mumbai every day.
Girls are often quickly swallowed into trafficking rings or drift into a life of prostitution, which is why it is largely males seen around the tracks.
In order to help them, early intervention is key: charities tend to focus on the recent arrivals who are not yet entrenched in street life and a cycle of addiction, violence and sex abuse.
Once they reach Ravi’s age, it is harder to get help.
“Recognising the vulnerability of children is not rocket science. They evoke sympathy and empathy and people want to reach out,” said Rao.
Less recognised are the risks facing over 18s, who remain “highly vulnerable” in their early twenties and need continued support and mentoring, as well as an education, to be successfully rehabilitated, she said.
“Is enough being done? Certainly not.”
Resting on another platform was Harish, aged 20, who said he ran away from home 14 years ago because his family beat him. He too now sleeps rough at the station and has been moving bodies for years.
“We don’t feel right living this way but now we’re used to it,” he said. “If we got some support to do better in life, we would leave.”
i read comments from pakistan. i agree this situation.but please compare india-pakistan railway condition
manjeet lohan haryana
well, the figures may look shocking but are correct. Conditions in our country are no different. The rate may be considerable lower or negligible in Pakistan because we do not even have trains running on the tracks. From 150 trains only 15 are operative at the moment. so, no trains no accidents. happy go lucky.
unfortunately this is the truth.May be time is more important for people than life.Increasing popultaion is a big issue in Mumbai because people from all over india come to this place in want of job.Pakistan is also facing same problems in Karachi but difference is people are killed on streets beacause of target killing and sectarian issues.In mumbai people are killed on tracks.
Number of children who run away from are in 100s not 10-20 as officials estimate.
Premier Manmohan Singh recently announced a mission to Mars next year.
India intends to place an orbiter above the Red Planet by September 2014 after a voyage of 300 days from Earth. Other ambitious projects include the second lunar mission in 2014, and a manned spaceflight in 2016. The agency also plans to send a satellite to skirt the outer solar atmosphere to gather data about the sun.
More than half of all Indian households have no toilet facilities, according to the latest census figures.
All the best to India and Indians.
Mr. Ali Muhammad.
My country is not perfect, I agree. We do have ambitions and we will be a developed nation soon.
15000 people? you gotta be kiddign me
15000 is 0.0015% of a population of 1 billion.
So, no, not kidding I guess.
That’s strange no comments this time from so many Indian readers.
Well pakistan always try to figure out -ve news about India, do u guys ever report about +ve sides like development etc
Face it you incredible Indians
this is just the way pakistani journalists are..It’s not just india that they report on, same stories on Pakistan as well. Anyways, despite that fact this article was pretty good!
You are wrong Aks.
I am a regular reader of Dawn, trust me Dawn is the most unbiased news paper I ever read. By the way articles which present +ve side of India are far higher, nevertheless, this article is reality. Lets accpet it.
Akash (Mumbai)
so many subways and overpass have been constructed for people to cross….but still they dont use it…this is definitely their fault…..to save time they put their lives at risk………
Never knew this side of India.
Brother go to TImes of India web site and see their comments and you will get to know the real face of Indians under the disguise of “Secularism”. I lived with them in UAE for 17 years and they are the most narrow minded communal nation on earth.
Hi, I m born bred in Mumbai… There are 3 railway systems within Mumbai Suburban railway- Western, Central and Harbour railway. Each begins at Churchgate and CST (Victoria Terminus) and go deep beyond the suburbs -124 kms.
Each train has 9-12 bogies… 15 bogies just introduced. Each bogey has capacity for 172 passengers- but at peak hour (7.30-10.30 am) it carries 400-500 passengers. Thus each train crries about 4500 passengers instead of about 1750. That is what promoted National Geographic to term it as – Super Dense Crush Load.
At a station halt – people have 30-40 seconds to disembark and embark.
Bridges were designed to carry passengers with 7 bogey trains earlier. These old designs remain due to intertia on part of railway and partly becoz there is no space.
Hence passengers cross tracks. Also, in Mumbai, people have only one thing in mind… to reach office on time….!
Hope now you know this side of India….! Yu are welcome to come and see and experience….