A 46-year-old Malad resident survived on sheer faith aboard a stranded local train for 18 hours before being reunited with his family early on Wednesday morning. A Jain by faith, he only had tea on Tuesday morning as he is observing the holy period of paryushan, and went for nearly 24 hours without having anything till he reached home.
Amarkant Jain (46), an IT consultant, left his residence on 7.45 a.m. on Tuesday, having had his last proper meal at 6 p.m. on Monday, when the rain was still moderate in its intensity and trains were running smoothly, to deliver a lecture at the V.N. Bedekar college in Thane. He caught a train back home around 12.50 p.m., which reached Kurla before getting stuck in the waterlogged tracks.
“The water was knee deep at the time and our train was caught between a boundary wall and another train. As the day passed, the water rose up to waist level and walking through it, especially in the dark was not an option. I kept speaking to my wife Mayura whenever I could, as I also had to preserve my cell phone’s battery, while waiting for help to arrive and also ensuring no one panicked in our compartment,” Mr. Jain told The Hindu .
Back home, Mrs. Jain had to ensure her two children and mother-in-law did not panic as well as keep up a steady stream of tweets to draw the attention of the authorities to her husband’s plight.
“Deputy Commissioner of Police Samadhan Pawar with the Railway Police, and a woman officer with the control room kept talking to me throughout the night till the water receded and the police could reach the train, which was the sixth in a line of stranded trains,” Mrs. Jain said.
Mr. Jain reached home at 7.45 a.m. on Wednesday, 24 hours after he left for work on Tuesday. The Jains said their faith in the system was renewed after the incident.
