Mumbai: The Western Railway (WR) on Tuesday recalled all warning stickers after a picture of one of the stickers, translated erroneously from English to Marathi, went viral on social media, causing much amusement and embarrassing the railway. The warning stickers were put up at all Western Line station foot overbridges after the Elphinstone Road station stampede that claimed 23 lives. The stickers were in English, Hindi and Marathi.
In the photo taken at Santacruz station and posted on Facebook, a sticker in Marathi said, “ Krupaya lahaan chendu gheu nakaa ”, which literally translates as ‘do not take small balls’. The commuter also posted a screenshot of the English phrase translated to Marathi using Google Translate, which shows the translation as ‘please do not take short cuts’. This seems to have been the message intended by WR.
The erroroneous translation was apparently used by the person in charge of translating and printing stickers without due verification, leading to amused reactions from people. Ravindra Bhakar, CPRO, WR said printing and putting up stickers was outsourced to a private contractor. “We have recalled the warning signs from all the stations. We will check these one by one, after which we shall rectify them. Only then will they will be reinstalled.” he said.
