Who cares about drivers?

It’s hard to imagine what bus and train employees, tasked with carrying millions of passengers, must cope with daily

There is a distinct absence of empathy when it comes to the people tasked with carrying millions of us across the city every day. I used to sense this as a college-going student, on mornings when the local train supposed to take me to Marine Lines would judder to a halt before entering my station. It would stop whenever someone slipped and fell onto the tracks. One never forgets that memory, no matter how many years pass: a fellow commuter’s life cut short, coupled with the thought that it could easily have been you.

In any other country, the sheer number of accidents on railway tracks would have led to systemic change; here, those numbers are filed away on shelves alongside other grim statistics. I used to think of the impact those incidents would have on the mental health of motormen. Numerous reports describe how they are left traumatised, unable to get behind the dashboards of their trains for a while. And yet, there is no point asking if they are offered the support they need because we all know the answer to that question.

Those motormen came to mind a few weeks ago when reports of a BEST bus ploughing into pedestrians began to emerge. It was a horrifying story, but what stayed with me was the nonchalance with which it faded into public memory within a couple of days. It prompted a flurry of accusations in court, of course, along with a few op-eds on why the accident had long been waiting to happen. And yet, it felt as if there was a collective acceptance on everyone’s part, that this is the risk one must take regularly to live in a city as poorly managed as this one. It reeked of apathy, a rancid odour often mistaken for the spirit of Bombay.

I can’t comment on the bus driver’s mental health, or whether the act was deliberate, but I distinctly recalled the faces of other bus drivers over the years, especially those in buses parked outside railway stations. You can see those faces today, if you choose to, provided you are part of the majority that still relies on public transport to get around. This is what I remembered: there was never a sense of calm in their demeanour, no hint of contentment, just a sense of people holding their breath while trying to do their jobs.

A street outside Borivli station was recently reclaimed from vendors, years after it had been taken over, but that victory seemed trivial when one took into account what every street outside every other railway station has been like for decades. Lines for buses stretch into the distance, with pedestrians trying their best to not get run over, and it’s impossible to imagine what bus drivers must prepare themselves for before they 
head out on a shift.

We speak of urban planning often in the pages of this newspaper, with experts pointing out time and again that governmental neglect dooms new infrastructure and every other project. Ours is a city whose future is determined by vote-bank politics, not common sense, the impact of which is felt most keenly by people tasked with ferrying everyone else on these crowded streets. What happened in Kurla last month was not a question of if, but when, because residents routinely take their lives in their hands as they walk out of their apartments. Pedestrians died because our streets are a nightmare we have all taken for granted, and because no one tasked with resolving this issue is serious about anything other than holding onto a ministerial portfolio.

I recognise the futility of this rant, but that, too, is a sign that Bombay has been ignored by its state government for too long. Anyone whose job involves the lives of many should have the right to voice an opinion about how things are being run. If pilots have a say on how airports are managed, bus drivers and train motormen should be consulted on how city streets and rail networks can be made safer. Everyone knows that what the city needs is more buses, not more selfie points, but this message doesn’t ever get through to the people in Mantralaya, which is why commuters continue to die.

The death of a faceless resident probably means very little to most of us because we write it off as a tragedy that is common in any metropolis. One day, however, one of those pedestrians may be someone you know.

When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira

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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper

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