Rail Kill

A personal account of the human toll of rail accidents in Sri Lanka

I was on a train during the August school holidays. My best mate Ajit was waiting for me at the Hatton station. The train ride was not attempted by many 15-year-olds, alone a 140 kilometres distance. I took off that morning from home with my bag and lunch, packed by my mother.

I sat in a corner seat on the crowded train with no doors, excited about the weeks ahead on holiday with my mate Ajit. The ride was slow, but killing my boredom, I watched the passing scenery from the large open window. By midday, the train was screeching to a slow halt at Polgahawela, a busy interchange station halfway to my destination. I kept looking through my window on my right, at the surroundings and the people on the other side of the crowded platforms.

Suddenly, I heard a woman screaming and wailing, “Brother, my brother”. Her wailing was so loud that I was stunned as the train stopped at the platform. She was crying helplessly in despair. I had no idea what this hullabaloo was for. Surprised and remaining seated, I looked out from my window. On the rail track to my right was a dark object. It took me a few seconds to figure out it was a human head. It was dark black, severed from its body, twitching on its own. Aghast at this grisly view, I nearly vomited. Seeing a severed human head on the rail track was bizarre.

The wails of the woman continued. Passengers were talking among themselves that the severed head belonged to the woman’s brother. To get a seat for his sister, the victim, her brother, jumped across the track to board the oncoming train from the non-platform side. Another train came from the parallel track and killed him instantly. Tragically and violently.

After a short while, as my train left the station, the wailing woman’s cries faded in the background. But I could not take that gruesome image of the dark human head out of my mind. When it was noon, it was time for my lunch. I opened my lunch packet, but I had no hunger or appetite. It was weird. I put away the lunch. I tried to forget what I had seen at the station. I did not feel any hunger at all. My stomach had packed up.

I met Ajit and his brothers at the Hatton rail station a few hours later. Ajit’s mother’, Aunty Irene, insisted I eat and made me a quick sandwich. In my friend's company, I was happy again.

I spent the next three weeks with them, enjoying the holidays in the serene hill country. It was pure bliss exploring and roaming the tea estates and waterways away from our busy school lives. I forgot all about that gruesome death on my way to see them.

Three weeks later, it was time for me to return home. I boarded the train from Hatton. Four hours later, the train stopped at the same interchange station. I was again at a corner seat, peeping out and watching. A bell rang at the rail crossing near the station to alert vehicles and pedestrians of an approaching train. As the gates closed, a cyclist crossed the closed gate and stood in the middle of the opposite track ignoring the alarm. Out of nowhere, a train appeared; it honed loudly to alert the cyclist of the imminent danger. It was too late, the train’s bumper hit him, and he and his bicycle were thrown twenty meters into the air from the train’s impact. I did not think he survived.

Another fatal accident at the same spot on my return, three weeks apart. Fortunately, I was not as close as the last time.

When I was in junior school, a few years earlier, an old man, Nicholas, lived near the rail station near our school. Nicholas was mentally sick and did not like schoolboys. He roamed the streets, swearing abuse at them. The boys responded in return, shouting and calling him a madman. Warfare emerged between the schoolboys and Nicholas. The moment Nicholas saw schoolboys passing, he’d hurl them with abuse. Young and innocent schoolboys did not know better; they responded in return.

One day, Nicholas started exchanging barbs with schoolboys. He got into a frenzy, picking stones from the rail tracks and hurling them at the boys. Boys hooted him and antagonised him even more. Nicholas completely lost his mind and started hurling more stones from the tracks. In his anger and confusion, he did not notice the danger he was in. He was completely unaware of a train that was approaching him. When the train hit him, it killed him on the spot. The boys saw his head, severed from its body, moving and swirling on the track. His tragic death was a hot topic among the schoolboys in my junior school: the mystery or a marvel of a severed head twirling on its own.

At the age of eleven, I went with my mother to visit a neighbour, Sarath, who resided a few houses away from us. Sarath was a young man in his early twenties recovering from a recent operation at the hospital. To my surprise, I noticed that one of his legs was amputated. The story behind his injury was heart-wrenching. Sarath had been in love, but unfortunately, his girlfriend’s family disapproved of their relationship. In an era when mental health was poorly understood, Sarath, driven by despair, decided to jump in front of a moving train. Though he survived, he lost one of his legs as a consequence.

Not everything turned out bad for Sarath. When he recovered, the girl he loved and wanted to die for married him anyway. With a permanent injury which was now a disability, Sarath lost his job. With his wife’s love and support, he opened a shop in front of their house and raised two boys of their own later in life.

In my late teenage years, I had a personal tailor, Kalu Mahattaya. He was the best tailor in town but had an addiction. He was a hopeless alcoholic. He stitched not only my clothes but also my friends’ clothes. But he drank all the time. After I moved to Dubai, he moved to a house near the rail tracks in the next suburb. During one of my trips to Sri Lanka, I learned that Kalu Mahattaya, too, had lost a leg in a train accident. I visited him in his simple house. He was a weak man, now a cripple, helpless and poor. In one of his drunken stupors, he had walked on the rail track and lost his leg to a passing train. I consoled him, parting with some of my money.

Rail safety was a big issue in Sri Lanka back in the day. Even 50 years later, not much has improved in my old country.

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