Mumbai's Lifeline

At a recent training program, we wanted to conduct a debate. There were about twenty participants- all executives of a medium size organization. There were nine ladies and eleven male executives. Most of them had been using Mumbai’s Lifeline- Local Trains.

The topic was defined as,

Commuters themselves are responsible for poor services of Mumbai’s Local Trains.

Two groups were formed. By consensus, it was decided that ladies would speak for the motion and men would oppose the motion and hold Government responsible for the malady.

Ladies group made out a strong case that commuters are either misusing the facilities provided by the railways or were not coming forward to notify their genuine complaints.

Male participants enumerated various issues like delays, shoddy  announcements, hawkers & beggars infesting the stations and the compartments, thefts, accidents etc, But, somehow they did not speak with conviction. So it seemed that the ladies had carried the day.

Then, the motion

“Commuters themselves are responsible for the poor service of railways”

was put to vote.

Contrary to the expectation - the motion failed. All the male and female participants voted against the motion and held the railway authorities squarely responsible for their mismanagement and all pervading corruption.