The Didi Express

Here is what I observe(d), watching Mamata-di, our honourable railway minister, present her railway budget.

• Most of the time, as Mamata is talking loudly, looking at her stack of papers, our other parliamentarians try to stand and out-shout her. But Didi, being Didi, steamrolls them with some of her counter-shouting.
• Poor Meira Kumar! All that she was doing was to tell our unruly representatives, "Please don't shout, Please sit down", as if they were school kids and ready to obey.

• Didi is flipping the budget pages left, right and center, pausing long at times and then starting to rattle off some train names and places, which with almost non existent intonation, sounds like a drone of a monologue.
• Didi smirks and makes pointed gestures and even snapped at the other netas. ("See what I am offering", "Can't you understand what I am talking", "It'll take another 4 hours")
• Lalu "the great", is shown at times, with his characteristic smile and shaking his head at times.
• I can only imagine the cacaphonic "kaapi tea chaayae, kaapi kaapi" of railway platforms, as I see (saw) the budget being presented. I couldn't understand a lot of what Didi was talking, whether it was in English or in Hindi or a smattering of Bengali. She was like a chattering toy with faulty electronics which started and stopped on its own will.
• It was a 'koththu parota' experience to see place names in Tamil Nadu being butchered by Didi.

Aside, why don't our parliamentarians embrace technology for this? Use PowerPoint presentations and talk only on the key points. Makes it easier. (There was a fake mail that floated around as excerpts from Nilekani's blog poking fun at the bureaucracy when Nandan Nilekani took over as the chair for the Unique Identification Authority of India project and when he supposedly wanted to present status to the parliament. That was fun)

Hopefully the budget is good for the train travellers out here.

Wah! Technology

I had been to the railway station last Saturday to drop off relatives heading to Mumbai.

Being of an earlier generation, they weren't any enthused by the need to be clutching a cell phone everywhere and the myriad options it has (I had resisted the cell phone mania for a longgg time, but eventually succumbed and now a virtual slave to it). Their children are in the US and settled in well. I made sure that they were settled in their seats and waved them bye. The train was to reach Mumbai on Sunday afternoon around 3:00 PM. The ticket examiner had told that the train would by-pass Pune because of some bridge damage/collapse and the delay into Mumbai may be of the order of 2 hours or so

Copyright of image acknowledged to its author

At around 11:00 PM on Sunday night, got a frantic call from their daughter stating that her parents are not reachable at their home number at Mumbai and their neighbor had said that they hadn't come yet. Scrambled, widely awake, logged in and looked at the helpdesk number for Indian Railways (IR) and dialed there. Damn the IVR system, there is no easy way to personally reach somebody to talk to to get an update. Then remembered that Indian Railways had a feature called "Track your train" / "Spot your train" which tells all info about the train in motion including stations passed and the time of arrival and departure at each station. Tracked the train and figured that the train had reached Mumbai only at 10:30 PM and as we were dialing the US to inform their daughter, she called in and informed that her parents had reached home just then!

A few minutes of confusion, then desperation, then relief and eventually settled down again for the night. How reliant have we become on technology! A cell phone is a necessity especially for aged folks, to be at least reachable. I am optimistic about India in spite of our slow pace of progress. Thanks to technologists at IR for that feature which was very useful for that night (I think TCS writes and maintains the software). I love trains and especially the engines (my personal delight). The only problem I have with our trains are the toilets. Otherwise, every journey is an experience.