Living in the outskirts of Kolkata, the biggest challenge in my life was the ‘journey’ that I had to cover every day. Being the only child of a middle class Bengali family aspirations were high and therefore the endeavour to achieve them slowly built in. For my schooling and after that higher education I had to travel a long way daily and till date do so.
Few know that the best conveyance connecting the northern part of Kolkata and its outskirts is the local train service. Similar was the case for me. From an age of four I have been travelling in local trains.
I must admit what a strenuous journey it is! First of all the people in charge of this essential service probably are not much aware of the term punctuality. Secondly the ratio between the number of passengers and number of trains is not quiet fair (which is frustrating). Thirdly, and most importantly security is not really looked after by the authority which is sad. Anyway, for the people from north, the local trains are life savers because they cover huge spans at really nominal time, you do not have to bear with the traffic hassles of the Kolkata roads. Therefore no matter how much we struggle everyday some of us will never be able to give up this journey.
Recently there has been a huge conflict going on in the ‘local train world’. Since it sometimes becomes really difficult for us –the women to board those heavily crowded trains, few years back a series of trains were announced which were only meant for the women passengers.
Now a local train usually has nine bogies – each bogie having four entrances. Out of these nine bogies a general train will have one bogie allotted for women passengers (which I feel is not a very just ratio). The rest eight comprise of the general and vendor compartments-the general ones meant for all genders and the vendor ones for the luggage, but practically during the peak hours of the day it becomes a bit threatening for a woman to travel alone in these compartments.
The trains that were announced only for women passengers were named ‘matribhumi local’ (the word ‘matribhumi’ literally meaning motherland). Now the running time of these trains were squeezed in the peak hours of the day, which naturally aroused a sense of discontent within the fellow male passengers. Several reasons led to this dissatisfaction:
- A train only carrying female passengers during the peak office hours.
- Not a single general compartment in a 9 bogie train.
- Even if a male passenger boarded this train out of urgency remarks passed by some ‘impatient female passengers’.
- A complete women specific train means a delay of at least five minutes for the male passengers which will consecutively result in the delay of the connecting transportations… as a whole delaying the whole process.
But the fellow male passengers never protested strongly as they either boarded different trains or just accommodated themselves in the vendor compartments of the ‘matribhumi locals’.
These trains were basically introduced for the sake of female security as you are most likely to encounter a case of molestation every other day while travelling by train. Therefore in the beginning we all loved this train (and most do till now). The fellow male passengers (obviously not the pervert ones) were relieved too as a woman travelling among them would be a reason of discomfort for them.
But very soon a problem entered this happy scenario. As I mentioned earlier, we the train travellers do not get the taste of punctuality. So say if a ‘matribhumi local’ is scheduled at 9:05 am, it invariably arrived 10-15 minutes late and therefore delaying the whole process. Naturally the male passengers suffered more because of this as at least one ‘matribhumi local’ is scheduled within the time period of 9:00 am -10:00am.
Recently it was announced by the rail authority that these trains specially meant for women would have at least three compartments allotted for men, thus everybody would save some time and have access to every train.
But the female passengers (a section) protested this very strongly as they felt that it was a careless step taken by the authority. As we, the women passengers do not have any special arrangements for security on the train, many women refused to share these trains with the fellow male passengers. The protests started in different stations all over the northern section, the area that is bound by train service. Initially the protests were peaceful. The female passengers demonstrated with blockades at different stations. No sooner these protests turned into mob violence and men and women engaged into fights. From women throwing stones at men, to men slapping women, it turned out to be nasty. As a result of which the rail authority decided to keep the trains reserved only for women.
Now the question comes, that how does all this solve our problems (by our, here I refer to the daily passengers)? We fought amongst each other whereas as fellow passengers we are supposed to stand by each other. Did all this suddenly improve the train service? The answer is a big NO. Rather for the past few days we are facing tremendous difficulties either the trains are coming irregularly or they are not coming at all. Now we supposedly live in a country that is rather progressing in an astonishing pace. But how many out there know the troubles we the train passengers face each and every day?
Thus according to my opinion it is impossible for people outside this boundary to understand what is it like to hang from a local train like a bat and reach the office or college every day. But my question to my fellow passengers is where is the unity that we are supposed to have? It is very obvious that every single of us has a role to play in this daily toil. So if we fight amongst us, will we ever be able to stand together against the faulty system? When we women are fighting for equal rights, should not we keep in mind that while asking for a particular train specially meant for women and prohibiting male access to it, we are contradicting our demands? Should not idea of equality between the socially constructed systems rise from these little factors? How much harm can it do if we can accommodate two general compartments in a train reserved for women?
If I was to opine on this, I would say it would rather increase the trust among passengers. The journey we commence everyday depends much on the interactions we have with each other-for example if there is an old man who is physically not very strong can be accommodated in a ladies’ compartment or a little girl going to school with her father can make friends with several male passengers in the general compartment. We all need to adjust as per the situation demands, that is what makes us human, that is why we call ourselves human. If we fail to make these small compromises then the whole system might just collapse.
Not that all of the above is just a figment of imagination. I did enquire my fellow passengers about this problem and many answered that they are completely against the whole concept of ‘matribhumi locals’. They suggested that if every train included one more ladies’ compartment then we would not even require such a reserved train. So you see many are there who understand the practicality of the situation and are absolutely ready to act according to it. Maybe we just to need to spread this awareness a bit more, in order to avoid such unwanted conflicts in future. Maybe with a little more enthusiasm we will accomplish that.
