Hey You Indian Politician, Take Guard....
They were our poinstmen when we, the beyond-burbies, ran in our individual and daily Mumbai Marathon from VT to Ambernath (around 50 kms away on the Central Railway route from VT) some 25-0dd years back. Dodging and hurtling through the crowd, we would land up breathlessly in front of the announcers’ glass-fronted cabin, adjacent to the station superintendent’s office, and begin our semi-dumb charades, holding up fingers to ask for the platform and mouthing the words Ambernath, Badlapur or Karjat. (For the uninitiated to Mumbai Suburban Rail Travel, the three-mentioned places are on the Pune-route). These were the days, when VT had six single-discharge platforms. It was essential for us to know the platform on which our train was routed to dash much, much ahead of the crowd and indulge in our daily game of jumping into our desired compartment with commando precision.
VT today (CST is the new and current name for this terminus) has four double-discharge platforms and none of the above routine has changed for un-automobiled lot of those living beyond Mumbai limits and coming into the city for their livelihood as different types of service-persons.
‘No enquiries’ it still says on the glass of the cabin. The announcers -- some neighbours, others staying along the route – would deliver answers to a chosen few, our frenetic group included. Otherwise, they would gesture: “Indicator sathe thamba” (Wait for the indicator) or “Thamb re, ghaee nako karoo” (Slow down, don’t be in such a hurry). They would, of course, be waiting for their cue from the superintendent’s office or from the senior in the mezzanine and convey the info via a ‘hot-line’ or walkie-talkie to the person manning the platform indicators before switching on their audio link an instant later. Others in our group hurrying in would be signaled to make way to the platform, once our man in front of the cabin got the info and relayed it via gestures much before the neon-lit indicator came alive with the same info.
The announcers were a good lot – brusque, going about their work of picking up phones, scribbling away in log books and giving us that inside information before the general crowd got to know (but then the rest would also get a scent of the information passed and stampede towards the platform). They still are. They still are. They still are.
But much of the info was with the announcers in the mezzanine above the office of the station superintendent. The vantage point allowed the announcers here to have a clear view of the platforms and the tracks. And they all used hotlines to convey their messages about drivers of incoming trains to report somewhere immediately, about yardsmen to be alert on a certain platform, for sweepers to attend this or that, for constable on duty to check this or that.
What is this tribe of announcers all about? Twenty years back, they depended on time-sheets, chits, “hot-lines”, walkie-talkies and live announcements all through. Today, a majority of the announcements are automated, tri-lingual (Marathi, Hindi and English) and pulse through the sound system at the click of a mouse. They are general railway staff, rotated from their various departments, given three-months hands-on training on the software before being pushed in the numbing routine. The daily time-table still comes in as time-sheets, which they input on that particular train’s template, save it and launch the audio.
What still hasn’t changed is their inability to get away from the desk during the eight-hour shift to have a decent lunch away from the work table. Lunch still is from the tiffin-box, right along side the work table with two minutes grabbed to wash their hands before and after.
The current monthly paygrade (do we also divulge the modest monthly entertainment outgo of the noble member of parliament under whose constituency VT station falls as a “needless” benchmark or for that matter about Railway babus and the top Railway Boss, but we shall let that pass) is approx Rs 3050 for junior announcers and a thousand-plus for the seniors.
They are class IV/III employees, with a clear option to go back to their department whenever they desire. And then there are those, who have been employed as peons, junior accounting clerks, administration clerks or ground poinstman in the signaling yards, who chose to stay on. The job of an announcer they know is still that of a poinstman, who gets active once the time-sheet or the hot-line prompts him.
On November 26, as the two terrorists heralded the war on Mumbai and turned CST into the first war zone, senior announcer of the Central Railway Vishnu D Zende went active, sans any hot-lines (which we understand is the ubiquitous piece of infrastructure for the high-level panels – set up by various governments and peopled by the general class of committee-rrati – to jerk into action). In the shortest passage of time, he ushered hundreds of fellow commuters out of the line of danger with alacrity and presence of mind. By Tuesday, Dec 2, we have learnt that 58 fellow commuters were the vitims of this terror attack.
Fellow Mumbaikars, let us honour / revere Vishnu Zende of Nallasopara – Mumabai’s present-day talisman.
– Mumbaikar
From http://www.centralrailwayonline.com/aboutus.jsp: Central Railway is the premier passenger carrying system amongst all Indian Railways. It carries over 4 lakh passengers daily to every nook and corner of the country through about 548 mail/express/passenger trains. (This was the place where xx persons lost their lives on Nov 26 and is separated from the suburban section by a wide corridor for entry). Mumbai suburban train system is the lifeline of this metropolis where 3 million commuters travel every day in 1236 local trains serving 73 stations. Central Railway also runs 40 suburban services on Pune-Lonavla section.
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