A train ride to cancer care

BATHINDA: Jasbir Kaur waits with her husband at the railway station's dimly-lit platform number one. The station, like the city, is unremarkable. Like dozens others here, they will catch the passenger train to Bikaner at 9.15 pm, from Abohar to Jodhpur.

Jasbir does not find it eerie that her train is called the 'Cancer Train', a name it earned over the last decade as it has daily ferried people with cancer from Bathinda to Bikaner for cheap treatment of the deadly disease. On any given night, there are about 70 to 100 cancer patients on this platform, says a station attendant. "Everyone knows it's the train for those with cancer," shrugs Jasbir, the cancer in her mouth slurring her speech.........