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It was easier for Lalu Yadav to add to the mess than to clean it.When some American airlines resolved to force overweight people to book two seats, the country’s late-night TV comedians weighed in with their repulsive drollery.

“Fat people were really depressed with the decision of the airlines,” said one. “Until they discovered that they were entitled to two food trays!” I think the Americans invented political correctness only to set up easy targets for well-dressed jokers.

Anyway, Lalu’s gift to the Mumbai train system provoked the above thought. First thrust disagreeable service on consumers, and then sweeten the blow with a potentially hazardous gratis treat.

The minister wants to add more trains to our city’s suburban commuter-train network. Think of that as that extra food tray. And you don’t need an extra reminder about what constitutes the disagreeable service.

But I won’t be too critical of the minister: it is infinitely easier adding to the mess than it is to clean it. What are we, the Mumbaikars, doing to use civic facilities with responsibility?

Is it the great Mumbaikar resilience that makes us put up with brash Virar commuters who screen fellow travellers? You could argue, of course, that why would someone hoping to make it to Borivili take a train that terminates at a farther station. I did not know that taking a fast train, perhaps to attend to an emergency, was banned by extra-constitutional fiat.

Talking of emergency, I had to visit an emergency ward to offer sympathy to a friend who had been pushed off a train recently. In the few seconds that I managed to speak to him before being shoved out, I learnt that he had been caught in the ruthless panic of those who wanted to get down before the train halted at Dadar, the terminating point for the train.

It turned out that those who undertook the return journey had the first right to enter the train. And even though the return trip began only five to seven minutes after the halt, the self-assumed rights of train-boarders overruled all considerations of safety to which the disembarkers were entitled.

The cost of the mob rule: three months of hospitalisation; six months of rehabilitation; more than Rs6 lakh in hospital charges; and the loss of the ability to ever run again. My friend is only 27 years old.

Mr Minister, Mumbaikars have no time for self-policing; so could you send out those smart uniformed chaps who need a bomb blast to end their hibernation?

That story has convinced me that adding to the train service without improving it will make the daily commute even more uncomfortable, even deadlier, to Mumbaikars.

The first train that ran in India chugged off from Mumbai on April 16, 1854, and reached Thane in 1 hour and 5 minutes, covering the distance with two halts.

That was good going, considering that it still takes the same time to travel between that stretch. And in 1854, remember, it was a coal engine that went the distance.

Besides, how can more trains be added? At peak hour, major stations receive a train every 3 minutes; where is the window to insert more crammed dread-coaches?

Email:raghu@dnaindia.net