Transportation losses, fuck them!

I currently live in Daltongunj, a town in the Palamau district of Jharkhand, India. Since I have come here, I have been looking around only to find coal everywhere… The chaiwalas, nashtawalas, tandoor walas, all use coal… there are smokes rising out of almost every street round the clock… the whole town smells of coal… Black is the colour. Even before reaching here, it was pretty evident that this place has a lot of coal reserves. I was standing on the door of my coach in the train to Daltongunj, I was looking for how this place looks like. It was the first time I was coming here. I was expecting a lot of mountains which weren't in plenty. That part of the area looked like a plateau. The train stopped at Garhwa, a boy shouted “newspaper for 2 Rs”. Few more minutes and the train stopped somewhere in the middle. A goods train passed by from the right. There were at least 20 people over there around the tracks. As soon as the train went away, they started picking up the coal that had fallen out of the open bogies, trying to take back as much as possible. Everyone had a white cement sack on their backs to fill in their share of the fuel. Three and a half months later, I now realize that from the people’s point of view, there are no ‘transportation losses’, at least in coal. Let the losses rest in peace in the balance sheets of the miners. :)