Bhubaneswar/Cuttack: Satyajit Das had travelled from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu thrice to work at construction sites. The fourth time he set out, he never made it past Odisha.
He was headed to Chennai from Kolkata, but remembers what sounded like a bomb blast a little after his train left the Balasore train station. Then he woke up bandaged and broken on a hospital bed, struggling for breath — and wondering how he was going to work again.
Satyajit, 24, was travelling with two of his friends on the Coromandel Express from Kolkata to Chennai on 2 June, when it derailed and collided with the Yeshwantpur-Howrah Superfast Express and a third goods train. The accident left 288 people dead and several others injured. His friends, who miraculously escaped with minor injuries, picked an unconscious Satyajit off the tracks. He was moved from the hospital in Balasore district to Cuttack after developing acute breathing problems — something he is worried will affect his chances of doing manual labour in the future.
“I’ve taken the Coromandel Express before, so many times. I’ve taken the Yeshwantpur-Howrah train for another job, and I’ve taken the Dhanbad Express too,” said Satyajit, who is currently recovering at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. “And I’ll take it again. If I can work now,” he adds, pointing to his injuries.
His head and legs are bandaged, and much of his torso is stamped with a large, dark purple bruise. He has stitches down the back of his neck and under his arm, where an iron rod pierced him.
Satyajit is one of thousands of people who rely on India’s trains to carry them to better opportunities — whether for work, education, or healthcare.
The passengers who regularly take Coromandel Express and the Yeshwantpur-Howrah Superfast Express include people from all sections of society. But what sets the trains apart is that they stop at Katpadi, in Vellore — an important educational and health hub.
“You may rightfully call them a poor man’s Rajdhani,” said Chitresh Shrivastva, senior non-resident fellow, Railways and Critical Transport Infrastructure at Global Policy Insights, a Delhi-based think tank. “Most passengers travelling on this train are either students or patients, hence you will see that getting a confirmed ticket on either train is a challenge,” he said.
Some anxiety, but no choice
By 9 pm on 8 June, there’s already a group of people waiting to board the Coromandel Express, which is meant to leave from Bhubaneswar at 9.55 pm. But the train is running three hours late — the group presumes it’s because it’s slowly snaking its way down the previously damaged track.
“I’ve never considered the chance of an accident until this week,” said Sukesh, 26, who is travelling to Vijaywada from Bhubaneswar for a contract labour job. “But what to do? I have to work.” He has made this exact journey to Chennai in the past, but has now lined up some work in Andhra Pradesh. There is some anxiety in the group of passengers, but the general consensus is that an accident of this scale won’t happen twice.
The Coromandel Express resumed its route on 7 June, and is fully booked until at least 28 July, according to Bijay Mangaraj, a senior clerk at the Bhubaneswar railway station. “See, no RAC (reservation after cancellation) seat available until 3 July. There are two seats available then,” says Mangaraj, gesturing to his computer.
Someone standing in line to buy a ticket from Mangaraj pipes up. “Of course there are no tickets available! The Coromandel Express is the only train to go daily to Chennai. My brother called a contractor for work only after he got a ticket last time!”
The Yeshwantpur-Howrah Superfast Express similarly ferries workers to and from contract jobs in South India. It’s also commonly used by students who study in hubs such as Bangalore, Vellore, Visakhapatnam and Rajahmundry.
The two trains are the arteries of the eastern coast, fuelling economic opportunities for the working class. “It is in fact impossible to imagine a seamless connectivity between eastern and southern India if not for these two trains,” said Shrivastva.
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A healthcare express?
Several reports — and word of mouth — suggest that people take the Coromandel Express from West Bengal to access better healthcare in cities such as Vellore and Chennai.
This is because while Bengal has good physical infrastructure in the medical sector, the state lacks the manpower, especially in rural areas.
The government is dealing with a shortage of doctors in the public sector, largely because of high rates of attrition, said Dr Fuad Halim, a CPM leader who also provides healthcare to those in the lower income bracket. “The robust physical infrastructure in Bengal is not matched by its manpower…Private sector healthcare is in its infancy in Bengal and has a long way to go.”
But there’s also a high rate of awareness in Bengal, according to Dr Halim. Chennai attracts people for all kinds of ailments and Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore, is also a popular destination. Those who live on the periphery of West Bengal also cross the border into Odisha, choosing to go to Balasore for treatment.
“It’s a varied and mixed bouquet of services that people travel for, but there’s a high degree of awareness that contributes to this,” added Dr Halim. “It’s a deliberate, informed choice.”
What’s more is that those who tend to travel from Bengal for healthcare typically belong to the state’s robust middle class, a product of the way the state’s economy developed. This salaried class has the purchasing power to buy a train ticket and travel to south India for treatment.
But the Coromandel Express is not like the Abohar-Jodhpur Express, dubbed the “Cancer Train” for ferrying cancer patients in the Malwa-Bikaner region. “It’s more like the ‘poor person’s train’,” said Dr. Shridhar Kadam, director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar (IIPH-B).
“People from the periphery of Bengal actually visit Odisha for treatment, like the district hospital in Balasore,” he said. “There’s an increased investment in healthcare in Odisha, but our public health infrastructure was not prepared to deal with an accident of this scale,” he added, referring to the triple train tragedy.
CMC Vellore is also a popular destination for people from Odisha due to schemes such as Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojna, a programme launched by the government in 2018 that aims to provide universal health care to residents of the state. The scheme can be availed at all government hospitals and over 200 private hospitals — and can be claimed for treatment outside the state too.
“People travel to places such as Vellore, Visakhapatnam, and Chennai for treatments. CMC Vellore, especially, has a really good reputation in Odisha and West Bengal,” said Dr. Sarit Kumar Rout, health economist and associate professor at IIPH-B.
“A significant number of people travel there. The word of mouth is really what instills confidence,” he added, pointing to the institution’s affordability as an added bonus.
Dr Rout’s family members have also travelled to Vellore from Durgapur for treatment. “But the movement is not as acute as the cancer trains that run from Punjab,” he said.
The aftermath
A week after the accident, there are still over 100 people recovering in Cuttack’s SCB Medical College and Hospital, where most critical patients were moved for treatment.
“The passengers being treated here in Cuttack were travelling for a variety of reasons,” said Dr Bhabani Shankar Chayani, district collector of Cuttack. “Some personal, but mostly for work.”
Sixteen-year-old Ramanand Paswan, originally from Nepal, was accompanying his uncle from Kolkata to Chennai. His uncle died in the accident, something Paswan heard from his parents who visited 16 hospitals over three days before they found him. The teenager groans in pain, writhing in his mother’s lap. He might lose vision in one eye, and his right leg is bleeding through its bandage.
Across from him lies 45-year-old K. Tarakeshwar Rao, who was also on the Coromandel Express. He was returning to his native Visakhapatnam after finishing a job in Kharagpur. He has a brain injury, and has lost his memory. His wife K. Tanisha didn’t find him until 6 June because his name was incorrectly listed in the Balasore district records as Tareshwar Rao. “I saw that name and took a chance,” she said. “And then I found him. I don’t know how to feel about it — it’s both good luck and bad luck. I have to accept that this was in our fate.”
At AIIMS Bhubaneswar, where the bodies of the dead are being kept, the question about fate hangs in the air. Ajit Bauri from Purulia, West Bengal, had to do the unimaginable — fight with another Odiya family over the body of his son, Samir Bauri, who they also claimed as their son. He’s waiting for DNA results to confirm that it is indeed Samir.
What makes his identification complicated is that he was travelling in the unreserved coach — and so his name was not on the roll.
He says Samir had a welt on his inner thigh. Pointing to one in a photo of a mangled body, he said, “This is how I know it’s my son. This was from last year, when he was working in Madras.” “He was in so much pain he was worried he might not work again. Now look…” he trails off.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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