So, the Railways have announced—with the solemnity of a priest at a last rites service—that they’ll finally install automatic doors on Mumbai’s local trains.

Not before the tragedy.
Not to prevent it.
But after four lives were crushed, mangled, and tossed aside like used tickets on a Mumbra platform. Only then did they discover what engineers around the world already knew: that trains going at 80 kmph with gaping doors are not “public transport” but public executioners on wheels.

Why now, dear sarkar? Why after blood has stained the tracks?

Let’s be honest—it wasn’t a sudden realization. It was public outcry. Screams not just of families who lost a son, a daughter, a husband. But the collective howl of a population shoved like cattle into compartments, clutching rods, dangling off footboards, playing Russian roulette with every station.

And suddenly, as if by magic, someone in Delhi woke up and said, “Doors! That’s what they need!”
Really? Like we just discovered gravity?

But you know why it took this long? Because our governments—state, central, municipal—are too busy bribing us with our own money.

“Direct Benefit Transfer!” they cry. “Empowerment for Women!” they trumpet. But while you pocket that Rs 1500 from some scheme designed to get your vote, your husband just fell off a train because there was no door to hold him in.

We are bribed to forget.
Bribed to be blind.
Bribed to tick a voting box every five years.

Infrastructure? Safety? Emergency exits? Automatic doors? Who cares, as long as you get a few thousand rupees in your bank account before elections.

It’s a fine trade, isn’t it?

Here, take this cheque. But don’t mind that the bridge you walk over is rusting like an old frying pan.
Here, sign up for this cash benefit. But ignore the fact that your bus has no brakes and your train no doors.
Here, wear this smiley sticker and say “Thank you, netaji!” as you bury your brother, your wife, or your son.

And when a tragedy strikes, the babus come to the press and say with puffed chests, “We are taking steps.”
Yes. Funeral steps. Post-mortem steps. Bandage-after-the-bullet steps.

But don’t be fooled by the sudden wisdom now wafting through railway boardrooms.

The truth is brutal:
These lives could have been saved.
This wasn’t an accident.
This was negligence wearing a politician’s grin.

So dear neta, before you start another scheme where women get LPG cylinders and men get nothing but death certificates—do us a favour.

Build a bridge. Fix a track. Shut the damn doors before people die.

And dear taxpayer, next time someone offers you “free money,” ask them if your train ride home is still a gamble with death.

Because unless your priorities change, it won’t be the train that kills you—it’ll be your foolishness that left the doors wide open…!

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