Season ticket passengers of Panchvati Express form a mandal, install an idol in train to be able to celebrate the festival.
The 2109 Mumbai-Manmad Panchvati Express is a community-driven train. It is not just the first train in the country to enter the Limca Book of Records for having an ‘Adarsh Coach’ developed by passengers, but also has a Facebook account and hosts the nine-day Durga Puja inside the train.
Season ticket passengers in the train have formed a registered mandal called the Panchvati Express Pravasi Sangh and pool in money to get an idol of Goddess Durga in the train itself.
The train negotiates one of the toughest ghat sections in the country between Igatpuri and Kasara stations and is a popular train between Mumbai and Nashik.
The idol remains in the train for nine days and travels with the train between Mumbai and Manmad.
“We are a close-knit community of passengers travelling daily between Mumbai and Manmad. We have developed our own standards of travelling and this year we completed 17 years of performing this puja in the train,” said Vasant Nikam, a commuter on the train and the president of the mandal.
Panchvati Express, which was also the first train in the country to have a train hostess, reaches Mumbai CST around 11am and departs for Manmad by 6.10pm. Between this, the train is taken to the Wadibunder yard and two poojaris look after the idol for 24 hours.
“We started Durga puja in the train as we leave our homes early from Manmad near Nashik and reach home late in the night. As we could not participate in the regular Durga puja festival we decided to install the idol in the train itself,” Nikam added.
“We now have plans to adopt Igatpuri station and maintain it. There are a lot of such activities that we do,” Bipin Gandhi, another commuter said.
“We later immerse the idol in a lake at different stations,” Nikam said. It may be recalled that for the past few years, the Godavari Express Ganpati Mandal, formed by passengers of the Mumbai-Manmad Godavari Express, has been bringing a Ganesh idol for 10 days inside the superfast train.
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