Train travel in Mumbai has been restricted to essential services. Even lawyers and their staff are not allowed to board local trains. Yet, trains are overcrowded because no one is obeying the rules and hardly anyone is being caught. This poem is Raju Z. Moray’s take on the issue.
—–
Hordes bulging trains
Are on a sticky wicket
Because most of them
Travel without a ticket!
Checking happens when
You ask for a ticket or pass
But if you just board boldly
You can travel by any class!
The rush hour thousands
Jostling to avoid being late
Break all laws and barriers
As there’s no one at the gate!
All the rules and the SOPs
Are only for the law-abiding
They agitate and they fret
While the ticketless are riding!
Some have moved Milords
Through PILs and such capers
Irrespective of matter’s merits
Their names shine in papers!
Sometimes a few are caught
By surprise checks at doors
Even those meagre penalties
Are now running into crores!
Most of us stuck between
The first and second dose
Wonder why we make laws
We are unable to enforce?
(Raju Z. Moray is a Mumbai-based lawyer who enjoys writing poems. He is the author of two books ‘Court Jester’-2017 and ‘The Locked Down Lawyer’-2020.)
