Chariot of the poor

Burns: Why should the race always be to the swift or the jumble to the quick-witted? Should they be allowed to win merely because of the gifts God gave them? Well, I say cheating is the gift man gives himself!
Homer: Mr. Burns, I insist that we cheat.
Burns: Excellent.

One Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Railway Minister of India, thought along similar lines - "Why should the air-conditioned compartments be only to the rich?" - and created the "Garib Rath" (Chariot of the Poor). The Garib Rath is a train that has been deployed on various important routes, like Hyderabad to Vishakapatnam, and is entirely air-conditioned. The tickets cost a little less than the regular a/c coaches on these routes do, so the poor people can "afford" to travel in style. (I'll leave the question of whether or not this is proper as an excercise to the reader.)

As it turned out, these trains aren't used only by the poor. I got to use this train when I made a recent trip to visit my grandparents in Vishakapatnam. It was a sweet ride. These trains aren't some old trains retooled as Garib Raths. Instead they have been designed specifically with this purpose, so their layouts are unique. Also, being new, they're remarkably clean. One problem is that they sort of overdosed on the cooling. At night the whole train gets really cold because of the a/c. No problem, they rent out a set of bedsheets, pillows and blankets for Rs. 25. Good business, no?

Singh is King indeed

I'm happy to announce that I've found a new job and I'll be moving to Chandigarh shortly. Like I said before, the blog address will remain the same but I'll be now posting about North India!

I'm very excited and one of my first tasks is to set "Bas ek king" as the ringtone on my cellphone!!

I'll be a little busy with the move and the settling down process but rest assured that once I'm there, I'll be posting as before. Thanks for all the wishes and greetings so far.

A small change of heart

You know how I changed my opinion about living in this country and how I felt that it could be done?

Well two days of almost no electricity and internet later, I'd like to recast my vote for "HELL NO!" As in "No freaking way can I live like this." It's bad enough that the internet is slow, but if it goes out altogether, then I can't live.

Just chill (till the next episode)

(On a sidenote before we begin, I've been dying to use that line as the heading for a post for about six months now.)

 

After the Mumbai blasts, it's not a stretch to say that security in the entire country got ramped up. You couldn't enter a mall or a theatre or a big office without stepping through a metal detector and getting felt up (frisked) by some security guard. (By the way, I think it's extremely primitive that they resort to frisking instead of using a hand-held metal detector. As someone asked, what if the guy frisking me is gay? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having a male person frisk me?)

Now, a few months after the blasts, security has clearly dropped off. On the way to my office, they used to check the badges of the people who worked in the building, and all other visitors were forced to park outside and call a person in the office to confirm that they were expected. Two days ago when I went to the office as guest, I just had to sign in a guest book and could walk up to the office. No one to check if I was who I said I was, or if I was expected. Similarly, in lots of malls all over the city, the security checks and friskings as you enter have become much more casual.

It'll keep dropping till there is another event and then people will get hysterical all over again and ramp it up. I suppose it's just human nature.

A primer on state of Indian Politics - Part 2, a few articles.

Guys,

In my second email I'd like to show a few articles. You'll notice they're all from the same newspaper. That's because that's the only Indian newspaper I read :) But even otherwise, everyone will admit that The Hindu is one of the very few non-sensational newspapers in the country. They lean very so slightly to the socially conservative side but are fairly secular and even-handed in their analysis.

However, these articles aren't really point-of-view articles as much as they are informative. So the leaning shouldn't be an issue.

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : The great Indian election
This is a rather dry facts and figures of the election. Very informative however and should be a good read to get the bigger picture.

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : The third as an alternative
This is a very good piece on the strengths and weaknesses of the Third Front as a viable opposition to the UPA and the NDA. The biggest point to take away from here is that should the election be close, the Big Two could easily lure members from the Third Front because they were previous partners.

The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Ambition and power play in the time of elections
This is an excellent piece on the details of the coalition politics and the dispositions of the Big Two toward these politics. It does a good job of detailing the tough situation that all these parties are facing and how their stubbornness or other attitudes might cost them a chance to form the government.

In addition there was another piece on the complexities of this election brought about by the rise of the regional and caste-based political parties. About how these parties make the voice of the smaller groups heard, more of then than not they end up being too narrow in their scope and vision, and push their agenda for their group at the expense of the nation. That was the best piece of the lot but damn it all, I can't find it.

Hope this gives you guys some good reference points. My third email will be me writing about some of the horrible electoral practices that are gaining strengths. This will be the main email since I hope to get the discussion I initially wanted to get going through that email.

Kalyan

An efficient solution?

I was wondering what to do with my vehicle after my move out of Pune. A stupid rule in this country states that you need to register your vehicle in whatever state you're driving it in. So, for my scooter that cost me Rs. 38,000 to buy, it'll cost me Rs. 8000 to register in whatever state I take it to. And that affects my options when it comes to selling the scooter. I was talking about all this with a colleague here and she was rather disappointed that I was considering selling my scooter. I explained that it would cost me too much to keep it.

Then she gave me a rather interesting solution - don't register the vehicle in the new state. Well, I said, I'll get pulled over by cops who'll see my license plate. OK, she replied, pay them off, Rs. 100 each time. Even if you get pulled over 10 times in the remaining 4 months or so, you are out only Rs. 800, only a tenth of what you'd pay for registration.

Wow. That short conversation gave me a valuable insight into a lot of interesting topics and in particular about the way people in this country think and act. And I am willing to bet anything that this type of thinking isn't restricted only to this country.

Goodbye to Pune

The big news that I've delayed posting about is that I'm leaving Pune. I've quit my job and have just vacated my apartment. The official story is that I ran out of things to blog about in Pune. So I quit my job. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. (Well not really, but the real story isn't exactly interesting, so forget it.) That's the reason why most of my recent posts have been about events in Hyderabad. I will continue to post to the same blog about the next city I go to work in.

Meanwhile, goodbye dirty city. I wish I could have seen you 30 years ago, when you must have been really beautiful.

Goodbye coconut water vendor. You always knew exactly what type of coconuts I liked.
Goodbye Andhra guy who ran a restaurant here. You were fun to talk to, and your food had great bang for buck, but it wasn't that good.
Goodbye the other restaurant here. You were way too expensive.
And goodbye third restaurant, closest to my house. You were a great ultracheap alternative for food.
Goodbye barber. You gave the best scalp massage a homophobe could ever appreciate.
Goodbye chaat shop kid. You made as good a chaat as I ate in Pune, and sorry but that's not really a compliment.
Goodbye apartment. I really wish we could have grown old together, but it wasn't meant to be.
Goodbye landlord. You were as honest as a businessman could be expected to be and a nicer human being. I hope my next landlord is atleast as good as you.
Goodbye colleagues. In a short time I'm glad I got close enough that when I came to the office to see a few of you, every one else atleast dropped by to say "Hi" and as a result caused me to stay at the office a couple more hours than I had planned to. You're all smart people and I was glad to have worked with you, but you're all better friends and I am happier to have made your acquaintance.