For five hours, Srichandra Kumar, an 18-year-old from Gorakhpur district, Uttar Pradesh, has been confined to a cramped space in the passage near the toilet of the general-class unreserved coach on the 12841 Coromandel Express (Shalimar-Chennai Central).
On June 13, the train chugs in at Balasore Railway Station. Now, Srichandra is to endure another 12 hours in the same uncomfortable position until he reaches Visakhapatnam, where he earns a living installing sliding aluminium glass windows.
Images of the tragic train accident involving the Coromandel Express, which claimed the lives of 288 people at Bahanaga Bazar Railway Station, may well have been haunting his mind, but the determined migrant labourer Srichandra would have banished the lingering fear to the back of his mind as he boarded the train from Shalimar station in Kolkata.
