Neha Venkatesh, an employee had seen something ugly in the railway station. She thought that why could I not change it beautiful? Hence she got an idea of making something special and beautiful which would attract the people and the passengers in the railway station. She did something interesting and beautiful at the railway tracks on the Aluva railway station near Kochi. This idea must be implemented in all railway stations.

A long string of bottles dumped with mud were taken and they are decorated with flowers and small plants and hanged them in between the tracks on the grills. Thus she approached the higher authorities and did as well. The motive behind the experiment turned out to be benevolent as well as aesthetic. Neha has shared her views and how did she do this to make it into reality in Facebook. This idea gives both beauty and benefit to the people and tells what creative art is. 

This was on my way to Kottayam, from this quaint little town of Aluva, about 16 km from Kochi airport. These pictures are from the railway station. As I entered the station, I saw these plastic bottles hanging from the barricades between the railway tracks and colorful flowers blooming all over them. Intrigued (and with some time at hand to kill), I went to the station master, C Balakrishnan, who was kind enough to entertain my query even as he was in the middle of a discussion with Mr. Mohan, CPS, and Ms. Indu, one of his team members. 

The trio informed me that this ingenious idea was the brainchild of Mr. Arun, the health inspector. This initiative may look like a simple intervention, but it addresses multiple issues. Just a small step towards ‘beautification’ of the premises, the plastic bottles were collected from the tracks by members of Ms. Indu’s team, thanks to incessant littering by travelers in trains that passed by over the last few months. China rose is a relatively low maintenance plant, I was told, and not only does it easily withstands rough weather conditions, but is also aesthetically pleasing. 

This was a practically no-cost initiative, and doesn’t require significant extra effort for maintenance and an interesting way of using bottles strewn away on the tracks. The most critical impact of this simple intervention blew me away: often, people used to cross railway tracks and that had led to an unprecedented increase in rail accidents; these plants don’t leave much space for people to cross through, thereby encouraging them to use the foot over bridge to cross over to another platform.