happy “blogging” tripathy

On my way to office there is a small railway crossing, almost everyday when my office cab nears it, the gates go down. Its not magical or something, its just the timing. 6.10 pm the gates close for the mumbai-pune intercity express. Its a routine sight, the gates go down, the train pulls through, the gates go up, people jump lanes and after a small traffic jam, we cross it and head towards office. But yesterday was something special.

As usual we were there at sharp 6.10 pm, there were around 6/7 cars ahead of us. A red swift is just infront of the railway crossing. Just as the gates go down, the driver of the red swift in a moment of moronic-genius thinks he can go through it before the gates come down fully and makes a move and heads into the crossing ignoring the loud sirens thats sound when the gate goes down. But he is stuck, the gates are down on both sides and he is on the railway tracks!!! People from both sides shout at the reckless driver to get off the track. The driver has no where to go, the swift reverses back fully towards one of the barriers and almost hits it, but he is still on one of the tracks. Now its an anxious moment for everyone around, the railway gateman jumps the barrier and starts cursing the driver, the driver is puzzled and wants to get out of this very dangerous situation. The mumbai-pune intercity express comes on the other track, where the driver is marooned, but he is dangerously close to it. I dont know why, but the driver and the passenger of the car never get out of the car.

Right then, we see the train barging on from one side, the driver has spotted a car on the track and is honking furiously. The train shows no sign of slowing down, it was a very intense moment. It was almost like 4 runs required of the last ball and Ashish Nehra is on strike We are out of the cab and anticipating a big crash, my colleagues shout at the driver “Get out of the car!!!”, but he is still in it and arguing with the railway gate-man. The train is now just about 100 mts from the car and suddenly applies brakes. the metal wheels grind against the railway tracks and there is a loud screeching sound, no sparks though The train stops just about a couple of feet from the swift. Ufff thank God everyone is safe, but alas I missed a live train to car crash event.

Now something unusual happens, the driver of the train and his assistant get off the train and come to the driver of the swift. The swift driver gets out and they literally start a fight there, even now the swift driver is convinced that it was not his fault! He was arguing that the gate-man should have waited until his car crossed and then brought down the gates. I never thought its so easy to find rich educated stupids. People on both sides of the gate now want this fiasco to be over and shout at the train-driver to get the train off the crossing, wah re bharat ki public. The train driver realizes there is no point in educating morons like these and gets on the train. He carefully inches forward the train and leaves, the gates open and our super-swift is the first car that zooms away, just to die another day. Soon everyone else start their engines and move out.

I was shell shocked to see the attitude of the swift driver and the general Indian public around. They should have been thankful to the train driver that he stopped right on time and avoided a disaster. On my way to office I was thinking, even after having manned railway gates, if things like this can happen then what should we do. All I can say to everyone reading this is do not try to save a minute and jump a “manned” railway crossing like this, and please please please be extra careful while crossing unmanned ones. the train has the right of way on a railway crossing, be it manned or unmanned. It is always wise to yield at such places, look both sides and then cross.

P.S : By the time I realised to take some pics of this incident it was too late.