Irrespective of all the bad and filth that's been told and written about Indian Railways journey, I still love to travel long distance in it. I always somehow fascinated sitting in your A/C boggy and ogling the outside world behind those messy glass panels. But having said that, this piece of mine is intended to give a pause to all those chaps who are planning to ride the world's largest railways network. Let me make this clear, travelling in Indian Railways comes with a premium- quite literally and I learned it the hard way this time around.
Being working in a field as deadly as IT where most of the times guys look so utterly disgusted which even would make Alok Nath look a happier person, I had always my travelling schedule up in scrambles till the last minute. As expected getting a confirmed ticket at last minute in Indian Railways is tougher than making Tushar Kapoor do some natural acting. So I always resorted to the generous Tatkal Sewa floated by our railways. Even this sewa is far from the reach of a common man as a huge scam is running behind close doors leaving even the first person in queue going empty handed. Thanks to Ram Babu (a ticket broker) who always honour my request to get me a confirmed Tatkal ticket with a paltry Rs. 400 /- fee. So my journey from Pune was never a problem but always had a problem or two while returning back as till date I am struggling to find a reliable Ram Babu's counterpart in my home town.
The last time when I travelled to my home town my return journey did throw some unpleasant experience as expected - thanks for the nonavailability of a Ram Babu there. To be in a safer side I did booked my return journey ticket some 20 days ahead with a waiting list number of 39. A certain know all did assured me that 39 is a safe waiting number which is destined to be confirmed by the time the chart is prepared. I never bothered for my waiting status till the point it is barely 5 days left for my journey and found I am still stuck at 21 and looking at the trend of last 15 days it looked more bleak a chance than - Pakistan becoming a sober nation, of my ticket getting confirmed. My father who always bothered to the core for my comfort did pitch in with his advise to go for a Tatkal ticket and getting my previous ticket cancelled and in fact he had one tout in the reservation counter who promised to get me a confirmed ticket without we moving our butt an inch even.
I wish I had taken his advise seriously, but instead I tried to be a smarty pant and went with some mathematics. I thought of not paying an extra Tatkal charge and some money to the tout but instead get some jackass around the miniature political circle to get my ticket confirmed in one of the official quotas. Looking at my adventure of going with non corruption my father did asked the ticket tout to go for a walk and started searching his contacts who can confirm my ticket via some quota.
There comes one such chap (close friend of one of our relatives) who hailed himself as the person who does those last minute quota allocations and promised us a confirmed ticket. Not entirely satisfied with one option one of our distance uncle, who happens to have some intimate contact with the P.A of a state minister was accessed and he guided us which lead to my dad biking around 10 kilometers to the minister's residence with the photo copy of my ticket for the P.A to acknowledge and forward it for a ministerial quota. All including my father were happy when the first chap called up and said he has done his job and my berth and boggy number would be known when the chat is prepared two hours before the departure.
The day of my journey did finally come. With the botheration of the ticket well out of the window, my mother started her part of packing (the prawns fry which I usually bring and vegetables of various kind) for me. One of my sister who was more bothered than me for the ticket must have started checking the latest status from the day break I guess. No sooner it hit 12:30 my sister called up and gave us that earth shaking news- my ticket is still in waiting 10 and the chart is already prepared. As they say once the chart is prepared even Momta Banerjee couldn't be much of a help. Both me and my father gave that unspeakable agony in our eyes - how the hell this can happen? How come both the quota allocating chap as well as the minister fail at the same time? All the contacts who were involved in this ticket confirmation activity were called up and we were honoured with some excuses of how the whole thing went horribly wrong at the last minute and how my name was removed from the confirmed list to accommodate some Rahul Gandhi stature fellow.
As I had to travel anyhow in that day and the Tatkal option was never an option anymore, I had to rush to the station to get a ticket of some other train for next day with a waiting list of 239. No one was contacted this time to confirm this as i never wanted to give another Rahul Gandhi some last minute un-comfort but instead to go ahead with my 1700 K.M journey in a waiting ticket.
Let me not write about the pain and torture, those persuasion of our ever so friendly T.T and those unspeakable agony I had to go through in my 36 hours journey. Then and there in the train I decided, at times it is injurious to health if you try to be a smart head. I prayed to God that never make me forgo my father's advise, even if it happens to cozy around with a tout, more so if he happens to be a ticket agent of Indian Railways. So to all those who are planning to travel - get hold of a Ram Babu somewhere down the street corner or plan your journey some 60 days ahead. If you fail in both then I advise you to drop the option of Indian Railways and search the net for some cheap budget flight. Good luck and have a safe journey.
It is strikingly similar and irritating like a high budget third graded movie- like Roop Ki Rani, Choron Ki Raja. Almost everything that is available going in and yet failed miserably at the box office. I am not here talking about any latest Ram Gopal Verma flop but our adventure of getting onto the talk table with our honourable neighbour.
But the irony is - what we are going to talk and in which terms? Haven't we talked close to a million times on the whole issue of cross border terrorism and how Pakistan intentionally or un-intentionally is a party to the nuisance? Have they improved even an ounce from the last time we talked to them? If our approach to the talk is to project Pakistan a global cancer, then again we are not going to achieve much- as in the whole world is already aware of it. So what is that we are going to achieve with this latest talk is any body's guess, well at least mine. But our foreign affairs office sleuths think otherwise. As per them, there is still a lot to gain from these bilateral talks. Lot to gain ? what is that 'LOT' contains? Hope not few more 26/11 or few thousand more Jehadis infiltrating our ever porous border.
As usual when Mrs.Nirupama Rao along with a bunch of confused looking entities flown to Islamabad for yet another round of talks, all hailed it a significant step. God knows how many such significant steps we have already taken and would continue to take. Strangely till now only steps are taken but never moving forward. Anyways lets not be too serious about comedy movies. They are there for some quick fun and lets laugh around till it lasts. As expected the comedy started the moment Mrs.Rao landed her foot in Islamabad. Guess who must be there to receive her at the airport - Director General (South Asia) Afrasiab Mehdi Hashmi. A much senior individual than the required protocol. His presence might give an impression on how serious Pakistan is this time around for some constructive steps. But keep your thoughts to limits till you get to know this man's unique qualities- over and above being a sound diplomat.
More than his diplomacy Mr.Hashmi is popular for his extra curricular activities in Pakistani diplomatic circle. He is touted as one of the best face readers ever to roam around Pakistani streets. He can even read the face of utterly confused looking (like our contingent) individuals and pin point on what exactly to be expected from them. Above the face reading stuff he is equally a powerful fortune teller. This brilliance of his came to the light of the world way back when Ziaul Haq was planning a visit to the UN and during a preparatory meeting of Pakistan embassy folks he promptly said he won't be coming tomorrow. And to surprise all Zia died the next day mysteriously in a plane crash. So armed with this phenomenal supernatural power he was there to receive Mrs. Rao. More than receiving her may think he was actually stationed at the airport to get the opportunity of fast hand reading of the Indian diplomat's face and what all she is planning to say or which way she is going to act or react. Funny isn't it.
I feel sorry for Pakistani government. Not because for stationing a face reader but because their lack of common sense. Do they really need a face reader to know what to expect? Do they think our diplomats and politicians would go anything beyond the famous words 'All Options Are Open and we urge Pakistani government to curb down terrorism'? So the duty of Mr Hasmi as a face reader fall flat on it's face and turned out to be a futile exercises. Better employ someone to carry out a black magic thing next time, where the recipient of the magic would die of vomiting blood. Because what you expect from any of our diplomats and politicians is a pretty monotonous one. So why waste your energy in some comedy.
So another rounds of talks were over. The so called sideline talks of our home minister which followed immidiately next was also over and we were honoured with yet again a million promises from Pakistan of stopping cross border terrorism and we came back jolly good after having some Pesawari delights, only to find the Pakistani establishment doing a U-turn (as directed by their ISI & Army bosses) as usual. So what's the net output of these talks - Hafeez Saeed can't be stopped from delivering hate speeches against India. Ahh.. we are made ourselves a bunch of jokers yet again. We again become a laughing point on lunch hour breaks across the globe and of course we are ready again for another round of talks some time soon and ready with our latest dossier number 120.
But a suggestion for whoever would be heading for the next round of talks- Just be careful of any black magic chap receiving you. Or else we might just end up saying RIP.
I was confused then and I am worried now. And still it has got nothing to do with Terrorism, Maoists or Himesh Reshamiya. Being a kid when the damn thing happened, I had little or no idea on this whole gas issue. Or should I say I had an overtly embarrassing confusion on the very word called Gas. I still remember when our small classroom filled with more than required number of pupils thrown into some unbearable smell of last night Paratha and Dahi Wada, our class teacher did pointed at the culprit with her ever so shrinking nose and advised him to maintain some civic sense and refrain himself from producing unwanted gas in public places. So when it come to catastrophe of some uncontrolled gas leak my knowledge was limited to the Dahi Wada aspect of it and not beyond. So when this gas did manage to kill some 20000 odd people it took me by surprise, as I never had an idea that a gas other than make you vomit does have some killer instincts too.
Now the worry for me after 26 years of the said gas leak is the way we handled it. When I say we, it constitutes of all citizens, our then able government and the governments to follow, our judiciary, Arjun Sing with that cap, the peon at the investigation agency, et all. If this farce of 26 years is to be termed as an effort to give justice to all those who suffered, then let me assure you, it failed more miserably and quickly than Jugal Hansraj's bollywood career. I would say my class teacher handled the gas leak situation better and made sure the culprit beg an apology for his unwanted behaviour and advised all others not to repeat this mistake of our friend ever. But in case of Bhopal leak we as a country failed decisively on all aspects - starting from rehabilitating the sufferers to bringing the culprits to book.
We never value the lives of our countrymen is a well known fact, but never been displayed so openly before Bhopal. The Anderson chap, who was touted to be the culprit in chief was very ceremoniously being taken out of the country by government charted flight was nothing less than some Priyadarsan's comedy movie. Now when asked what made the government took so much of pain in transporting perhaps the biggest offender of Indian law, we hear some idiotic version of law and order going haywire if he remained stationed in Bhopal. If even this argument is taken on face value, it still baffles me and million others on why this chap was allowed to fly out almost giving him a state honour? He could have easily been dumped in some jail in Delhi, if not Tihar and the law should have been allowed to take it from there.
The sharp contrast of British Petroleum paying 20 billion to USA for killing few Turtles and Octopuses in Gulf Of Mexico to the $450 compensation for each dead corpus in Bhopal is nothing short of projecting ourselves as a bunch of jokers. If this comedy was not enough the apprehended smaller fishes were handed a paltry 2 years jail term and bailed out in 58 minutes is rubbing salt in the wounds. 2 years jail term for 20000 deaths? doesn't it look like something gone horribly wrong somewhere? Looking at these statistics I don't think we have any authority to hang Afzal Guru or Qasav, if we judge all these cases on the same yard stick. Well Hang on - I don't think these two jokers would ever be hanged though.
Now what we achieved after 26 years? A sour mouth and red ass, 450 dollars each which I guess average outgoing US spoiled brat might be spending in strip clubs over the weekend, a new avatar of Arjun Sing plus the white cap, Manish Tiwari becoming a definition of idiocy and as usual Bharat Ratna Rajeev Gandhi (then Prime Minister) projected as the sole person in the face of the planet who seriously wanted justice be delivered to the gas victims. So many achievements, I must say.
Thanks to the media, the case was revisited by the present government and some useless committee did finally advised the prime minister on how the whole thing has gone wrong. But justice seems to be far from being delivered. The Anderson fellow is enjoying his golf and National Football League and cheering for Chicago Bears, while we as a nation are deep in blame game and some funny looking jingoism. None seems to stand accountable. Arjun Sing (Minus the white cap) washed off his hands by pointing the blame to the dead Narashima Rao, who in turn might be pointing to Rajeev Gandhi somewhere up in the heaven and we lesser mortals are searching for credible answers down below on planet earth.
National disgust is a milder word. I always thought for 2010 the biggest national shame would be the commonwealth games, but was proven wrong as the biggest shame for this financial year came at least 4 months early. I as well as all know, nothing going to come out of this in future. We are licking our Bhopal wounds and would continue to do so. Only prayer is that no more national shame be brought in prior to the last national shame for this year - The commonwealth games. Till then move on and plan your next holiday somewhere in Andaman & Nicobar. Good Night!
It is not always I take an auto rickshaw for my travel. Thanks to my car battery gave in the other day, I had to hire one of these obnoxious looking three wheeler to reach my office. I could have taken the town bus, but refrained from the idea as I am not that master in hanging onto a moving vehicle's window panel, unlike many others who have mastered that art.
Being true to his brethren erratic driving sense the driver of my auto tried to show me all of his uncanny driving skills in my fifteen minute journey. All went along well till the point where my auto driver thought of applying some hard break (must be an ex Air India pilot), for some unknown reason to me. Along with me he took the biker coming behind us by surprise. Not to mention the biker couldn't possibly applied the break as hard as the driver did and eventually crashed onto the auto, almost throwing me as well as the driver out of the vehicle. That was enough for the battle grounds to set. Both the drivers rushed towards each other hurling each other with full throat abuses and adjectives. The drama continued for next fifteen minutes with Mother, Sister, Daughter and all other possible female relationships promptly being assassinated in open air under a huge public view.
Now this small incident make me ponder. Why are we so repulsive with our language and way of talking? Are we like this from our grandfather's time or off late we have become a rowdy bunch? I am not sure of the records but I don't think our grand parents would have been so nonsense with their civic and social sense. All these road rages, passing lewd comments to passing by babes, at times even aunties, going on a kick boxing exercise on the drop of a hat, all these are new found phenomenas which were not known even a generation back. Is it due to that 8% economic growth, Pranabda? or it has also some ISI hand Mr. Chidambaram?
Many would argue, it is the handy work of the uneducated bunch like the auto drivers and paan walas. Educated people seldom get down to this cheapness. I was also carrying the same impression until recently when I happened to take a flight from Pune to Delhi.
As I always has one tragedy or the other from a screaming infant sitting next to me in his mother's lap to an idiot sitting in front, who as if has left with these 2 flying hours only for the rest of his life to take a sleep and end up pushing back his seat to the point it seems from a distance, as if he his sleeping on my laps and I am just about to sing a lorry. So this flight as I expected was no different. A certain Mr. 100 Kg to the right, emanating some freshly eaten pungent fish curry smell and a certain Mrs. 80 Kg to the left and not emanating any effervescence, thanks to her religious beliefs. Being sandwiched by these two huge human beings and the smell, my nose as well as my limbs went for a permanent paralysis.
No sooner the jet lifted an inch from the ground the fish curry decided to take a sound sleep. I mean literally. By the time the beast was completely airborne and seat belt signs were off, the gentleman with whom I was unfortunately sharing the row was at his best of producing noise of all kinds matching decibel per decibel with the jet engine.Ghadghadghadddd.... Furrrr!!ddrrFur... and some third non descript sound type and repeat of the same cycle. 15 minutes to our flight my right ear has given up all hopes of getting itself back to the factory fitted normalcy again. Must be a wild bear incarnated, I thought. Losing all hope I stopped complaining mutely to the torture I was thrown into and started going through my cell phone's address list to find if I had an ENT specialist's number stored or not. Hang on, don't be confused, if you think at least my left ear was spared from this torture. It was not to be. Mrs.80Kg to the left, with a huge fear factor of flying has already taken out her 105 nut Rudrakha Mala and started counting one by one to thrash away the incoming danger, if any. Along with the counting there goes the full Hanuman Chalisha followed by the Gyatari Mantra with a tone, as if Lata Mangeshkar has a sore throat. The sandwiched posture, even struggling to breath properly, the fishy smell and the sound of various kinds - I was almost in the verge of vomiting.
Just when I was about to vomit the air hostess was at my rescue serving the in flight dinner (as it was an evening flight). I don't know how, but somehow her request to open the front tray did stopped the sound from both the directions. I promptly honoured her request and so does Mrs.80Kg keeping aside her Rudrksha thing for a change. But the incarnated wild bear was far from doing the act. After repeated efforts of the air hostess Mr.100Kg did woke up and asked for a non-veg meal. All hell went wrong when the babe returned with a sorry face to let the fish man know, they ran out of non-veg stuff and if he would care to manage with a veg one instead. Then and there the sleeping beast went out of control along with fingering last fourteen generations of Naresh Goyal as well as the air hostess followed by a good 15 minutes lecture on professionalism. The fight for food made me remind the clips of a documentary of the famine ridden Somalia and our own Bastar region. The incarnated bear possibly wielded almost all of the relationships before he went silent.
At least from his attire, if not his language, Mr.100Kg did seemed like one educated brat. But all education went out of the sealed window at 30000 feet for as small a thing as not getting a non-veg meal as ordered by him. If the law permits he could have made the air hostess stripped to the basics and paraded her in the corridor for not complying to his choice of food. Now that's where it makes me think, education has got nothing to do with we being turning out a large scale cursing factory. We have moulded all possible relationship to our cursing agenda to give it a more flamboyant look. It doesn't matter if one happens to be that auto driver or the incarnated bear in the fuselage. With this I rest my case!!!
Driving is never fun, more so if the roads happens to be that of India's. It is for all those helpless Tom, Dick and Harries who are planning to come down to India soon and more dreaded, if they are planning to drive around also, this piece of literature might just help a bit.
So, which side in India you drive? well, officially left, but don't worry, here official guidelines are seldom taken seriously. So coming back to our question : you start from left, if it is not been occupied, if so then go to the right. Don't bother about the incoming traffic, as in they would also be in a lookout to switch to their right. Just be careful of those lazying bulls or stray dogs in the mid of the road, temporarily doing the road divider job. If you can negotiate those unwanted entities in the mid of the road then it doesn't matter which side you are driving or planning to drive. Now that you being bestowed with the basic of driving knowledge in India, lets venture into other finer points to be a successful and accident free driver on Indian roads.
The set of funny looking lights of green, saffron and red do have the same meaning as at any place of the world. The difference is it's utility on Indian traffic. So don't get it wrong - Red means stop and so on. Hang on, not necessarily always. A little piece of secret- Indians (at least those who drive) are colour blind. So don't be so sure to zoom off when your side is given the green light. You never know a colour blind might just rocket into your lane from the woodwork with a neck breaking speed in his bike. For that matter, you are advised not to get frightened or dismay if you see your side is moving ahead nonchalantly even if there is a red signal for you guys to stop. If unfortunately you take these traffic rules too seriously then you might just end up your car being smashed from the back side by yet another colour blind or worse, you find yourself the only idiot standing in the mid of the road waiting for the lights to turn green, when all others zoom past you from all sides. For a change you are allowed to look at those paan chewing traffic cops with disbelief, who are rather busy catching hold off bikers without their helmets on- not for the sake of road safety, but for some early morning business.
While on Indian roads, you are advised to exercise double caution, when it comes to negotiate a peak time traffic. You can expect anything from anywhere to come in between you and the noise making lorry barely couple of feet ahead. I mean- literally anything. It could be three jovial chaps riding a single pre-Independence period scooter, or a babe with half of her face wrapped for protection from pollution or sun rays with her ever so imbalance scooty, a bunch of stray dogs doing some sort of gang war thing and another set chasing them or even a full length sedan inserted vertically making an angel of 30 degree, almost touching the lorry in front and your head lights at the back or worse all four at the same time. The foremost thing to do, is to have some respect for the town buses that fly on the roads. Hell, how could you recognize one such nuisance? Mark a stuff barely looking like a bus, with the number of passengers boarding it could easily exceed the population of few of the smaller cities of Europe. Err!, I beg your pardon. You can't say all have boarded the bus as half of them would be seen hanging from the door, window panels with help of their respective toe nails or even with skin of their teeth. So please don't be disturbed if one of those cliff hanging individuals do give up and fall on your car bonnet occasionally. Keep it in mind, these buses do have the license to kill. They can stop anywhere at any position without giving any warning - like applying the indicators or the back lights showing the slowdown of the vehicle in front for the benefit of those coming from behind. Not entirely the fault of the driver of this dreaded vehicle- it is just that most of the time these warning apparatus don't work and occasionally even the authenticity of their brakes are questionable.
Now the second deadly species need some serious apprehension, are the taxis or auto rickshaws. There you go- An auto rickshaw full with objects having striking similarity to humans. The stuffing continues till the point few sitting inside get faint in want of fresh air or oxygen and many others, who barely could squeeze in, ending up just barely managing their heads in with their bulging posteriors tucked out. The driver driving in some funny looking half sitting and half standing Natraj posture, left foot jigging up and down to the loud music of the Bhangra rap version of Gayatri Mantra, a Gutka pouch tucked in the right hand and above all ogling the chick standing on the left footpath. A complete orchestra of tragedy in motion. NASA could have gone with hiring few from these drivers for their Rovers experiment instead of hiring the all expensive dentists to streamline the maneuver in acute angles on Marsh surface.
The third deadly thing to negotiate are the bikers or the moped wallas. Let me warn you, don't get yourself fooled with the dirty looking World war-II era bikes they would be riding. Their gravity as well as death defying stunts on road would give Mike Duhan and Max Biagi some serious complex. No sooner you think of hitting the gas paddle little hard, there would come this biker with most of the times with two pillion riders from the wrong side with the vehicle emanating noise decibel which could confuse you it with some cryogenic engine. Much more than their driving skills you should save yourself from that fountain of saffron saliva which time and again these pillion riders would be seen spitting like a spitting cobra. A slight judgement of error, your wind screen would be left with the mercy of your car washer or if unfortunately you are not driving a four wheeler, it is advised to take off your shirt then and there and throw it to the nearest gutter you come across.
I am not sure if I cautioned the prospective future drivers of India on the clear and present danger or actually made them completely abandon their plan of this adventure? In any whichever way output would be for better only. But having said that, as they say everything has some positives associated with it, so as driving in India. If you can manage to concur this summit without getting hurt or hurting someone else, then let me assure you, there is no place on this planet where you can't drive and for that matter moon's surface is even not out of bounds for you as far as driving is concerned.
Irrespective of all the bad and filth that's been told and written about Indian Railways journey, I still love to travel long distance in it. I always somehow fascinated sitting in your A/C boggy and ogling the outside world behind those messy glass panels. But having said that, this piece of mine is intended to give a pause to all those chaps who are planning to ride the world's largest railways network. Let me make this clear, travelling in Indian Railways comes with a premium- quite literally and I learned it the hard way this time around.
