Never a dull moment

I took the Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Jaipur early in the morning last Monday.It has been a long time since I travelled intercity by early morning train. Railway station sin large metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai etc represent microcosm of India. The wealthy passengers in transit stream into the station for early morning trains from lodges and hotels in the city. Some of the not so well off manage to stay in guest houses and railway retiring rooms. The vast majority tend to spend the night in the open areas at the entrance to the station as railway authorities do not allow public to sleep on platforms through the night. There were several men and boys who did not have any luggage and were fast asleep on the floor. Some had managed to lay their hands on old newspapers which had been spread on the floor like bedsheets but most were sleeping on the bare floor. There were some who seemed to labourers again with no personal belongings. There were some with a small bag as their only po...

We tend to become less objective at times on weighty issues especially on our jobs. On several occasions, we do not stand up to our bosses in order to be on the right side of things. This is true in most spheres of life. So it is difficult to point fingers at others for keeping quiet or looking the other way when serious issues crop up in their career. But nevertheless I am going to do that. A news item couple of days back caught my eye. Anju Gupta IPS 1990 batch has made a long statement about the events she saw in close quarters as the Personal Security Officer of L K Advani on the fateful day at Ayodhaya on December 6, 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished in a "spontaneous outburst of fury" by the large mob which had gathered at the site. One of the people giving company to the leaders of BJP and its associate organisations out of his political conviction was the retired Director General of Police. There were several IAS and IPS officers around the vicinity of Babri M...

Work is going on furious pace to get New Delhi ready for Commonealth Games. Chief Minister of Delhi is talking about engaging agencies to make Delhi public more pleasant in their behaviour. Being rude and unreliable are the pillars of public behaviour of Delhiites and I wish there is some way these pillars could be shaken as suggested by the Chief Minister. I have not seen any perceptible change on this front so far. There is plenty of action on the infrastructure front. There has been a lot of beautification drives which has caused hardship to vegetable vendors and other hawkers. Some sidewalks have vanished and plants have sprouted in their place. There are large green boards in important roads with the name of locations painted in white. Some of the boards on the footpaths at low level where the traffic tends to move fast. A person on a two wheeler or a car would not be able to see it especially if there is large vehicle like a bus, pickup van or a truck to the left in moderate to ...

I visited the city on work for a day this week. I had been to Chandigarh some years ago as a tourist staying with the family in the Haryana Tourism hotel inside Pinjore Gardens. This time around the Shatabdi Express from New Delhi on Sunday proved to be slow train reaching an hour late on a journey which should have taken three and a quarter hours. The train did not seeem to have any energy when it started its journey and inched its way for an hour until it picked up speed. My colleague was on the train in another compartment. We were greeted a by a large group of taxi and autorickshaw operators at Chandigarh railway station. A typical reception which generally await tourists who are strangers to the place. Unsolicited advice followed astronomical trasport charges for the ride into the city. We took an autorickshaw to a good hotel where we had reservations. The "transport" guys at the railway station were puzzled as the type of hotel where we were booked to stay and autoricks...

Systematic and step by step way of doing things, especially those tasks which are repetitive,is good for organisations and even for our families. But there is a limit to this method. One thing I have noticed is the too much of process- protocol orientation prevents common sense approach to tricky situations tying us in knots whenever such situations arise. A killer whale killed its trainer at the end of the show by an entertainment company Sea World in February 2010 at Orlando, USA with thousands of horrified spectators watching on helplessly. The trainer had reached out to pat the killer whale for its excellent performance when the show ended and the killer whale pulled dragged the woman trainer by her pony tail and drowned her to death. The incident was investigated by experts who felt that the killer whale wanted to socialise with the trainer and hence it dragged her into the water. Sea World said it was tweaking / tightening its protocols and procedures to prevent recurrence of suc...