🚂 The Cancer Train Has Arrived at Your Doorstep
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 hours ago
- 9 min read
1. The Origin of the “Cancer Train” in Punjab
The Train Itself: For years, an overnight passenger train running from Bathinda, Punjab to Bikaner, Rajasthan has been called the “Cancer Train.”
Why Bikaner? Because the Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Centre in Bikaner offered relatively affordable treatment compared to big cities.
The Passengers: Hundreds of villagers — many from farming families — boarded this train every month, seeking treatment for cancers that had become alarmingly common in Punjab.
Statistics: Studies showed cancer incidence in parts of Malwa region (Bathinda, Mansa, Faridkot, Muktsar) to be far above the national average. In some villages, nearly every family had one or more cancer patients.
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2. The Root Causes Behind Punjab’s Cancer Epidemic
Green Revolution Fallout:
Introduction of high-yield wheat and rice varieties in the 1960s.
Dependence on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides.
Excessive use of groundwater, leading to contamination with arsenic, uranium, and heavy metals.
Soil and Water Poisoning:
Tube wells brought toxins up to the surface.
Canals carried untreated industrial effluents.
Groundwater laced with nitrates and pesticide residues became the drinking water.
Lifestyle Shift:
From traditional millets and pulses to pesticide-heavy wheat and rice monocultures.
Junk food, smoking, alcohol compounding chemical exposure.
Healthcare Neglect:
Lack of early screening, delayed diagnosis.
Villagers often sold land, livestock, or borrowed heavily to afford treatment.
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3. The Metaphor — We Are All Standing in the Same Line
Boarding the Train:
In Punjab, villagers had no choice but to take that train.
Today, the same poisoned food grains, vegetables, and fruits grown with chemical overload travel across India — reaching your plate.
Urban Consumption:
The polished wheat from Malwa goes into packaged flour brands.
Vegetables laced with pesticide sprays reach every city market.
Milk from hormone-injected cattle reaches every chai shop.
Industrial Replication:
The model of Punjab’s chemical agriculture has been copied across India — Maharashtra, Andhra, UP, Haryana.
Cancer hotspots are now everywhere — Tiruvannamalai, Eluru, Gadchiroli, even metros.
Invisible Passengers:
Your neighbour with breast cancer.
A colleague fighting leukemia.
An uncle with liver cancer.
A friend’s child with lymphoma.
These are all fellow passengers already on the cancer train.
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4. The Realization — The Train Has Already Arrived
The train is no longer just Bathinda–Bikaner.
It has pulled quietly into your town, your street, your family.
Some of us are already inside it (diagnosed).
Some of us are standing on the platform (pre-diabetic, fatty liver, PCOD, thyroid issues — all precursors).
The rest of us are in the line, tickets already booked, through the poisoned environment, the food chain, and lifestyle.
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5. The Broader Warning
The Cancer Train is not just about Punjab; it’s a mirror for humanity.
Every new chemical-intensive crop, every plastic packet, every sip of pesticide-tainted water is a boarding pass.
We comfort ourselves thinking cancer is about “bad luck” or “genes.” But the truth is: it is designed into the system.
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✅ In essence:
The Cancer Train is not a distant reality or a rural tragedy of Punjab. It is a living metaphor of our times.
It has already pulled into your life.
Whether you notice it or not, you — and everyone you know — are already in the queue to board.
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The Cancer Train Has Arrived
-- a dialogue with Madhukar
Opening Scene
It is early morning at Madhukar’s off-grid homestead near Yelmadagi. The air is still, the day not yet noisy. A neem tree throws its shade across a simple mud courtyard where wooden chairs and charpoys are placed in a circle. Clay cups of herbal tea send up steam. Silence carries weight.
They arrive one by one, each with their own reason.
Raghav, the travelled cancer patient, comes first. He has not slept well in years; pain and regret keep him restless at night. Dawn is the only time he feels steady enough to speak.
Anita, just diagnosed, follows soon after. Fear has kept her awake all night; she comes searching for clarity before her family begins pressing her with questions and doctors demand decisions.
Suresh, strong-looking and apparently healthy, arrives next. He comes reluctantly — pushed by a mutual friend — thinking of it almost as a formality. To him, talk of cancer prevention is exaggerated.
Meera, calm and observant, comes last. For her, arriving early is discipline; she values starting the day with clarity. She has lived consciously, growing her vegetables on a balcony, avoiding excess, noticing since childhood who falls ill and who does not.
Madhukar, the host, waits quietly. He receives them in the morning because silence and freshness make space for truth that daytime noise does not allow.
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Raghav (the travelled patient):
I have been on that train more times than I can count. Every journey is the same: fear, pain, uncertainty. The train feels endless — one coach is chemotherapy, another is radiation, another is waiting for test results that never end. What I learned too late, Madhukar, is that I was not a victim of fate. I had been preparing my ticket for years — with every pesticide-laced vegetable, with every glass of contaminated water, with every careless meal at roadside stalls. I ignored the whispers of my body, thinking disease only comes suddenly. Now I see: cancer is not an accident, it is a slow boarding.
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Anita (just diagnosed):
But if that is true, what chance do I have? I never smoked, I never drank, I tried to eat moderately. Yet here I am, report in hand. I feel cheated. If I cannot trust even my restraint, then what is left? People tell me, “Go to the best hospital, get the latest treatment.” But how do I know what matters most — the machine or my own choices? Am I to spend my savings, travel endlessly, and still live in fear? Tell me, Madhukar, where does one even begin when the train has already moved?
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Madhukar (clarifying):
Anita, the beginning is not in machines or money. It is in recognition. You are not guilty, but you are also not helpless. The body is not a battlefield to be bombed by drugs alone; it is soil that must be healed. Treatment is one path, but transformation is another. Both are needed. Do not think of it as punishment. Think of it as a loud alarm that cannot be ignored.
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Suresh (future patient, unaware):
I think you are exaggerating. Everyone has to die of something. Cancer, heart attack, accident — what difference? Why should I waste my life fearing every grain of rice? If I stop enjoying food, festivals, sweets, company of friends — what is left of life? Look around — everyone eats the same, drinks the same. Are you saying the whole world is wrong, and only a few like Meera are right? That sounds impossible.
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Meera (the observer):
Suresh, I used to think like you. But I watched carefully. I saw my neighbour, who used pesticides without care, die of throat cancer at fifty. I saw families who celebrated every occasion with deep-fried food and endless sweets, slowly collapse into diabetes, obesity, and cancer. But I also saw my grandmother, who grew her own vegetables, lived by simple rhythms, and avoided excess — she lived disease-free till ninety. Observation is enough to learn. I decided to act on what I saw, even if others laughed. My balcony garden is not perfect, but at least I know what I am putting into my mouth.
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Suresh (defensive, resistant):
But isn’t cancer in the blood, in the genes? Even rich people, even disciplined people fall sick. Look at leaders, actors, intellectuals — they too go. If it is in destiny, how can I escape?
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Madhukar (clarifying):
Genes are seeds. They lie dormant. Soil and weather decide if they sprout. A family may carry weakness, but it only turns into disease in poisoned conditions. You, Suresh, are carrying silent tickets — in every packaged snack, in every sugared drink, in every polluted breath. You may believe you are safe, but these tickets will be used one day. To say “everyone dies” is not wisdom, it is surrender. The question is not whether we die — the question is how we live until that point.
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Anita (still shaken):
But Madhukar, if awareness is the answer, why didn’t anyone tell us before? Why do schools not teach us this? Why do doctors not warn us until it is too late?
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Raghav (bitterly):
Because, Anita, the system thrives on passengers. If people stopped boarding the train, the hospitals would be empty, the pharmaceutical companies would collapse, the industries selling fertilizers and junk food would shrink. I learned this too late — that I was not just a victim, but also a customer in a large market of disease.
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Madhukar (clarifying):
Yes, Raghav. That is true. But bitterness alone is another disease. The question is — what do you do with the insight now? Do you let it rot into regret, or do you pass it on to those still outside the train? That is your duty.
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Meera (firmly):
Exactly. Awareness is not for pride. It is for sharing. If I grow vegetables, it is not only for myself. It is a way to show my neighbours that even in a balcony, health can begin. If one family learns from me, the chain weakens.
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Suresh (uneasy, softening):
But it feels too heavy, too strict. Must we sacrifice everything — sweets, festivals, enjoyment? Are we to live like monks to avoid disease?
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Madhukar (final clarification):
Not monks, Suresh — only mindful beings. The old ways of celebration were not poison. The problem is not tradition but distortion. Sweets made once in a while from jaggery are not the same as daily factory-made sugar. Festivals that came once a year are not the same as indulgence every weekend. Life does not ask you to reject joy. It only asks you to reject poison disguised as joy.
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Closing Silence
The tea cups cool. Raghav carries regret but also clarity. Anita feels her fear shift into responsibility. Suresh begins to sense unease about his habits. Meera feels confirmed in her path. And Madhukar, calm, lets silence answer the rest.
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The Cancer Train Has Arrived at Your Doorstep
the train whistles at midnight
from bathinda to bikaner
people call it the cancer train
but it is no longer just a train
it is a mirror of our lives.
men with swollen livers
women with breasts cut away
children with shaved heads
sit in coaches that smell of antiseptic and fear.
the ticket collector is not human
it is the pesticide, the plastic bottle, the sugary drink
that stamped your pass long before you knew.
in punjab they sprayed wheat fields
until the soil coughed up uranium.
they poured chemicals into canals
until water turned into poison.
villagers queued with medical files
as if going to pilgrimage.
this was not one man’s tragedy
it was whole districts
whole generations.
but don’t think it is far away.
your sack of atta in mumbai
your tomato in hyderabad
your packet of chips in bangalore
all came from the same poisoned earth.
your milk carries hormones
your rice carries residue
your air carries ash
your plate is a boarding pass.
look around—
your neighbour fights colon cancer
your colleague hides her chemotherapy wig
your uncle takes morphine for bone pain
your friend’s child battles leukemia.
you think you are outside the station?
you are already in the line.
the line is made of habits.
plastic tea cups on the highway
colas at every wedding
deep-fried samosas in reused oil
bright orange jalebis dripping with chemical dye.
cheap shampoo with unpronounceable names
mosquito coils smoking into your lungs
skin creams laced with bleach.
every spray, every swallow, every shortcut
is another step forward in the queue.
and the queue is long.
housewives, farmers, teachers, IT engineers, rickshaw drivers.
cancer is not picky.
it boards rich and poor alike.
it does not ask if you are educated.
it only asks if you lived blind.
yet, not everyone is blind.
there are families that see the pattern.
they grow spinach in pots
tomatoes on terraces
bananas in backyards.
they cook with restraint
they eat what they understand
they respect hunger and rest.
they watch who fell ill and who lived
and they choose the path of the living.
madhukar’s homestead near yelmadagi
is not rich, not modern, not fancy.
but the soil is alive
the water is clean
the food is known.
there are no coils smoking,
no packets of instant lies,
no blind faith in hospital machines.
there is awareness
there is choice
there is freedom.
the cancer train has already arrived.
it waits at your doorstep.
some of your family has boarded.
some of your friends are inside.
some of your colleagues are already sitting near the window.
and you—
you are not outside,
you are only waiting for your turn.
the train moves slowly,
but it never stops.
step back from the line if you can.
throw away the poisoned ticket.
plant something you can eat.
learn to say no.
learn to observe.
learn to choose.
because once you step inside,
the train has no return journey.
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⚠️ Warning:
The cancer train is not a story of Punjab anymore.
It is the story of every Indian city, every village, every family.
And unless you choose differently,
it will also be the story of you.
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