A Journey cut short..

Some days never belong to you, like this one perhaps..  It was Saturday, my weekly off, and i almost reluctantly got off my bed at six o’ clock in the morning. On other days six in the morning is like midnight for me. Jokes apart, who would like to get up and travel in these cool  winter. All one would seek is an additional blanket to wrap around.

But, I had to attend rather an unusual meeting, a sort of business trip one can surmise. My outstation train was scheduled to depart at 8 in the morning, so i started my way to the railway station at 7.15 am.  I have travelled extensively by trains, but still, the tentativeness prevails, especially, when travelling by long distance trains, the feeling of getting lost, the feeling of missing the train, or the compartment or the seat always lingers somewhere back in my mind. May be this feeling arises because of some wrongly planned journeys before.

Anyways, i reached the station in time, the usual platform from where the train was to depart was full with people and long distance trains were coming and departing. A north bound train was stationary on the platform no. 4.  The train was fully crowded and people cramping to get in.

It was 8 in the morning and i was expecting train to arrive, but there were no signs of it, the indicator did not show any remote mention of the train, the compartment indicators were mum either. I was getting restless, the inquiry counter as ever was deserted one.  At around 8.15 one announcement was made that the scheduled train was running indefinitely late.  It rendered me just helpless. Our railways have discovered just an innovative technique it seems, to shrug away its responsibilities by announcing that the scheduled train will arrive indefinitely late. By doing so they avoid keeping the waiting passengers updated about the status of  the train.

My wait for the train was taking me nowhere, i was in dual state of mind, whether to find alternate means of  travel or to just stand and await the train. All the trains were coming and zooming past, only the one train which i was going to board was nowhere near the horizon.  It was now around 9 am in the morning and i stayed put, for as per my calculation, i had to reach for the meeting at around 1 pm in the afternoon, I calculated that even if the train arrives at around 10 or 10.30 i would be well in time for the meeting. So, i stayed there, i used my cell phone to track the current position of the train on internet, everytime i would look for the current status, i would feel relieved, as it would indicate that the train was really round the corner and would arrive in about fifteen minutes time. This false motivation helped me that day.  I sat on a seat on the opposite side of the platform where i was getting some sunlight which kept me warm and kept watching the usual hustle & bustle at platform, which as a routine traveller, i myself miss as i also become part of that large crowd always in a hurry to reach office, home or other destinations. Today i had ample lot of time, i kept watching, the porters, the canteen guys, the newspaper vendors, the travellers, the policemen just everybody, the platform being a big junction, was crowded as well. As trains would come and halt, people of the province from where the train originated would alight. India being a colorful country, the attire of the people alighting would tell from where the train arrived. I saw porters carrying away a dead body on stretcher on the opposite platform. Used to that we as travelers are now, i did not feel much about it.

It was 10.30 by now and now, it was time for me to take a call.  I was getting too much restless by now. I had two options in my mind, one either to find a bus, but that journey would have taken good five hours  to reach or to call off the meet altogether.  When i was in double state of mind, one express came inside the station, the announcer warned the people at large to stay away from the edge of the platform as the train would not stop on that station. Being a crowded station, the train lowered its speed, but it did not stop, it was running faster than human sprint. At some 30-40 feet away from me, i saw a young boy running to board the train which was in motion. He had nearly fallen, but somehow, scampered to get in. I cursed the boy silently, for his hurry could have nearly taken his life today.  By the time i ended my silent monologue, i saw yet another youth trying to alight from that train, which by now had increased its speed. The boy in his early twenties, jumped on the platform, but could not control his balance because of the speed, so to control his motion and balance, he held to the pole of the train, which in effect only pulled the boy, the boy totally lost his control and just rolled on the platform, but, luck was not on his side, like the earlier boy. The boy just rolled down from the platform, and I saw the boy falling down on the tracks !!! Oh Shit !!! was what i could say, so could others, nobody could have done just anything, as everything happened so fast and so furiously that it would have taken superhuman efforts to try and save the boy. As the train passed we all ran to the edges of the platform, hoping against the hope that the boy might have survived, might have saved in the corners of the platform edges. But what we saw was a gory seen, human flesh spread all over the tracks, the train had mowed the guy, he was cut into pieces, and there was nothing else but blood all over. I saw many such accidents in the past, but all i saw was dead bodies laying on the stretchers. Today i saw the accident happening in front of my eyes. I was terrified,  so were all others who were near me, as we were the very first eye witnesses of this accident. I felt like crying, i felt like vomiting.

People alerted the railway authorities about the accident, in usual callous way, the announcement was made to call the stretcher porter and policemen on duty. By the time they arrived, yet another train, this time, Duronto Express zoomed past spreading the flesh all the way to many yards further away.

The pieces were collected by the porters, it has become their daily regime and they do not exhibit any kind of feelings, they were talking with each others and showing no signs of any feeling, good or bad. The body was carried away.

By now, i had no energy to even think about the meeting, all i could do was to ring and request for postponement of meeting. I walked my way to the platform for my return journey to my home. I was all occupied by the gory scene that i saw, i felt very bad for the guy who died, it was his mistake all the way, but what was the mistake of bereaved people whom he left back by his indecision ? I returned back to my home that afternoon totally shaken.

Next day when i read the news of this accident, i was able to rewind the entire scene. It was reported that twin accidents took place. One accident took place on the platform opposite me, i recalled having seen a dead body being carried away by the porter, the train standing in stationary position for quite a long time. Actually, it so happened that people were trying to scamper into this north bound train, and even before the train could stop they all tried to enter into it. In this melee the old man fell in the gap between the platform and train. He was alive for good forty minutes, but thanks to the efficiency of the authorities, the poor man died. Had he been attended aptly, he might have survived. The second accident that was reported was the one i saw.

I would wonder, and sometimes contest the news stories that were recently published in the newspaper that the Killer Trains of Mumbai have claimed 40000 lives in last decade (read here), but the one i saw forced me to believe that not all that i see is enough.

My journey was cut short that day…

So were the journeys of other two guys on that fateful day.

The Mad Mad Race…

Next Day a driver reports for duty, after performing long gruesome duty last night, he asks for a short distance trip. He was denied the same. The driver walks away, boards an empty bus and just zooms it away, he drives on the wrong way, kills around eight innocent people, damages countless number of private & government vehicles, the police gives him a chase. His madness stopped only when he was stucked up in a snarling traffic jam in a narrow street.

After inquiry, it was found that the normal looking man, who performed his duties well for last twelve long years suffered from psychiatric problems, he was undergoing treatment which he left halfway down. This real incident happened some 10-12 days before at Pune, near Mumbai. The incident was first of its kind on this side of the planet, we hear about such cases quite often in the west, stories of mindless people going on shooting spree, killing hapless people. In one case i remember a shooter killing school kids in school. This forces me to think, are we all not, ticking human time bombs, waiting to explode ???

Sometimes, i feel, we all are mad !! the degree to qualify may vary, which in turn gives us a label of being a normal sane person. But somewhere deep down, we all are insane. Some mad after achieving some goals, some mad for gaining more and more richness, some mad for other worldly pleasures, some to please their egos. But mad, we all are, to some extent. We wisely cover our madness and label it as career oriented, upward mobility and other fantastic terms. But the madness is the same. Sorry, if somebody feels offended, mad that i am

Yes, a bit of  madness is required, but it should be to a certain extent.  This madness made Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein. This madness made Newton, a Newton.  Your Madness should be your motivating factor,  it should not be a depressing one.

We all carry a loads of anxiety, worries,  frustrations with us.  The world may see a very clean, sauve, sombre face of us, but beneath the mask lies real us. Modern life, and the demands of it, have only worsened the story. Has’nt it ? We all are running an endless mad mad race, a race which has no end, race to achieve targets, race to earn more, earn more for our better future, better future at the cost of losing our present.

Has this recklessness and stress not resulted in increased incidents of heart troubles in our youth. Youths in their prime are dying of sudden heart attack. Leaving behind their uncherished and unfulfilled dreams of a better tomorrow. Some fifteen twenty years ago the deaths of youngsters due to heart ailments were unheard of, surely these twenty years gap coincides with the liberalization of economy that government has undertaken. The situation becomes even more critical in developing country like ours, without much backup systems, the public health system is in disarray, the psychological health of a person is never even given a passing thought. Like in the case of the reckless driver above, the organization, a huge public transport organization accepted that they had no systems in place to check the mental fitness of their employees. Coupled with the fact that people find it very unacceptable to visit a psychologist. A belief most people carry is that only mentally unstable people need to see them.

Life has become more stressful, we don’t get time for ourselves, time to sit for a while, time to pause, enjoy smaller joys of life. I remember one gentlemen travelling in our train compartment quite often. He was a hefty gentleman, well dressed in formals with tie and would stand somewhere, and would travel very silently, but all of a sudden he would start talking to himself and it seemed that he was undergoing some very huge level of stress in his office, he would talk about office, targets, would plead apology to boss, and would talk in a way as if he is in conversation with someone. If a fellow traveller, touched him or asked him what was wrong, he would again get normal, but only for a while.

Are such people not a ticking bomb. For they carry with them their world, world that is not so rosy after all…

So be mad my friend, but, be mad for good and do press that Pause button for a while.

The eternal wait..

It was one such weekend, i was longing for,  had thought of a perfect saturday plan, planned not to do anything, just lie on the bed till atleast eleven in the morning and lazy around. Afterall, was working continously even on weekends from first of January this year. Not all the work was Official, but, engaged still i was since the beginning of this year. I said to myself, i really deserved this weekend’s break.

Nothing unusual happened to put spokes in my plans the day before, i.e. friday, atleast till four o’clock in the afternoon. A fax arrived from just nowhere from our headquarters that afternoon intimating that our top boss, the topmost bureaucrat was visiting the city and would visit the Office. No Sooner did the fax arrived, the office geared itself up in near war mode.  ”Efficient” employees like myself are the ones to suffer these attacks as they are the ones who are utilized the most. I sometimes envy the not so “efficient” ones, who may or not may be efficient, but have surely mastered the art of  dodging responsibilities. What is more annoying is that this lot of people, not only dodge their responsibilities on the shoulders of not so smarter souls like me, but they enjoy watching us toil with almost devilish grin, a grin that underlines how smarter they were.

So, after the review meeting, it was decided that a presentation be prepared, it was almost 4.34 by now and the process of collection of data from various departments, compiling the same into a presentable presentation was not smaller a task. Given the fact that this presentation will go through atleast three bosses from juniors to senior ones who would suggest modifications & re-modifications.

By the time the first raw presentation was submitted a peon came with circular  intimating that the Saturday Weekly Off was cancelled and that everybody would have to remain present in the office by 8.30 am.  Almost in tandem, the boss sitting next to me checking the presentation told that i would have to sit late today. I laughed myself. It was a case where man proposed and god disposed.

So the task of preparing the presentation continued, till late in the evening, till around 7.45 pm, to be precise.  Tired and totally drained i returned home at around 10.30 pm that night. Just gobbled some food and went to bed, not forgetting to set the alarm clock on to ring at 6.30 in the morning the next day. I went to bed that night in no time.

The next morning the alarm ringed and i almost unwillingly and cursing the arriving guest work up and reached the office at around 8.30 am. The work was in full swing, the cleaning work, every department were giving final touches to their figures, preparing reports, giving final look to what they had prepared. A scurry of activities were going on in the otherwise slow and steady paced government office.

Our bosses went to the guest house to receive the top boss, this boss was infamous for his temperamental and aggressive nature and everybody were aware of his nature, hence, each one of them were getting themselves as prepared as they can to answer any query.

It was around 11.00 am, one of the boss once again came to give a final look at the presentation and suggested few more additions in the presentation, those were aptly incorporated. By that time a phone call came that the Bureaucrat had changed his mind and would be visiting our office first, actually visit to our office was second on the itinerary.  We all rushed to the conference room to make arrangement for the Projection of the presentation and it was said that the Bureaucrat would be here within next half an hour.  With heart losing its pace, we all waited for this gentlemen. All last minute preparations were in place, the bouquet, the photographer everybody were in place, for this elusive guest.

Half an hour passed but the guest was nowhere in the sight. Periodic updates were being received from the bosses who were with the top boss. In all this one thing was notable, one boss was at his cool, coolly carrying out this routine work, he said, that the top boss would not visit the office.  One phone call came informing that the boss has now sticked to his earlier itinerary and is visiting the other office.  Soon news came that this boss was checking almost everything, he did not spared even the toilets, telephonic instructions from the bosses came to be careful. Sweepers rushed to the toilets to ensure it was also sparkling clean.

By now it was afternoon, and we all broke down for much deserved lunch break.

We were now as prepared as we were, like young school going kid fully confident to face exam, each one of us were ready to face the top boss. So we were awaiting with our guest.

Since there was no signs of the arrival of the much sought after guest, i thought of leaving the conference room and went back to my cabin to check my mails.  I was feeling lazy and bit of tired and sleepy. At 3.40, i called up the inquiry counter downstairs to get update of the guest, the reply was that he cancelled his visit to our office. I was feeling like being ditched. For two long days, i worked untiringly, i sacrificed my much needed break for just nothing.  However, the news of drubbing that the other office received sent a sight of relief. For sometimes these  bureaucrats are whimsical and prejudiced, some come with the only objective to fire, to show who is the real boss, and unnecessarily one gets dressing down for no reason, i’ve seen many a bureaucrats in last sixteen years of my job.

Sometimes, i really feel that because of such whimsical bureaucrats, the progress, in our country had to wait, just as i was made to wait for my elusive break

Does Education matters ???

Childhood days were days of great dreams, dreams of becoming big, in haste to grow up we would imitate ourselves like grown ups, learn their body languages of grown up people whom we then idolize, habits which stuck up with our persona and in turn swayed us away from our own originality.

The common career trend in our childhood days was to study hard, become either doctor or engineer. It was a profession of repute, it still does is. IT, Biotech, Hospitality or other similar sunrise industries which we see now was not even heard of in the 80′s. Schools and Education was the main source of achieving what we’d then dreamt of, of becoming big.  We would be pampered, cuddled, forced to study, study even harder. The boy or girl earning more percentages then us would be envied upon by parents, and at times hated by us, for because of them, we were being looked down and forced to do what we did not particularly liked much – to study.

Childhood days were of forced education i guess, because most of the times we kids did not understand what we have learnt, so just mugging up was what we used to do. But, as we grew up we started to cope up with the system and learnt more precisely what we were required to. Education then we thought was the only thing that can change lives. Education is important, but, it is not the only thing that can change lives, is now what i believe, your attitude, your experiences, your approach can also change things upside down.

We were in our tenth standard and it was the final year of our secondary education, a make or break year that could shape up our future permanently. Obviously, we all were very serious about the year. Coincidentally, the school in which we were enrolled was a new and our school wanted to prop up the best of results, the teachers exulted extra pressure on us to perform better. We all were a good batch and were expecting a good result for the school and ourselves. There were a couple of students who not so good enough, teachers pressed them hard to study.

Then there was this boy, who had different ideas, he was average in studies, he had good dreams, dreams of college life and the fun of it. He would study as hard as us.  After the exams he was the boy who rushed to various colleges to collect admission forms, and he had scouted around 25 different colleges & collected forms in that one month of vacation.

Soon the D day arrived, and we all waited with anxiety for the results. At around 5.30 pm the teacher came with the results and declared the results, just the basic result of pass or fail, in the class of forty, only three students failed to pass the hurdle that evening , it was a good result by all measures. We were jubilant and it was one of the happiest moments of our lives.

But as our happiness sunked in we soon realized that the boy was nowhere around, we understood that he had failed the exam, the boy full with dreams to enjoy the college life could not have gone to college that year, he was broken, he was nowhere around. He was my best friend, he still is, after so many years, we were actually a gang of four. So we three friends rushed to our homes to find him, we checked up with our parents whether he was seen in the locality, the happiness was now replaced with tension, tension that this emotional boy might end up taking some drastic steps. We reached his home and inquired with his mother whether the boy turned up, the anxious mother said no and asked what was the matter and about the result. We lied to her that the results would be declared tomorrow morning and made a hasty escape. Now, we were really tensed, where would this boy have gone after all. We confided the story to one neighborhood uncle who was very close with us. He too now joined the search for this boy. Our search finally took us to the secluded railway tracks, where we found a faint shadow of a boy sitting all alone on the tracks for the train to arrive, we ran towards him, as we went near and near we found that he  was the boy whom we were searching for so long. As the boy saw us, he became unusually aggressive and started shouting us to stay away from him, he picked up stones from the track and started throwing it at us. His anger might surely have hurted us, then the uncle came in front and said “…son, you want to harm me, come throw the stone, hurt me”, saying so he kept on moving closer and closer to the boy. The boy could not have hurted the uncle whom we all liked so dearly. He helplessly hugged the uncle and wailed and weeped like it was the end of the world for him. Somehow, just somehow, we were able to convince the boy that it was certainly not the end of the roads for him, we managed to bring him back to his house and then we told his parents what had happened. They were also broken.  Time, as we say was the cure, the boy recovered from the failure. No he did’nt study further or re-appear for the exam. But that did not deter him from achieving his goals.

We are still in touch with each others, sometimes, the boy who is now a man, a father of two, becomes nostalgic, comes to the locality, he now stays in other suburbs, he becomes sentimental, takes me down the road where it all happens, once he even took me to the track where he was going to give up his life. He  once thanked me and my friends for saving his life.

Today, the boy is a successful businessmen, he is a Wealth Consultant, last time when i visited his office, i found fifteen employees, mostly graduates and MBAs working under him. The boy in a jovial tone told me, you friends went to colleges to complete your graduation, i plunged into this field and today i employ graduates like you under me, come you too leave your job and join me, i will pay you more than what you earn.

The joke he did somehow hurted me, for i somehow felt that i spoilt some fine years of my life learning the subjects which were never of any use to me. The history of world some six centuries ago that i learnt, is of no use to me, the geography – the easterlies, the westerlies, the physics, the geometry the trignometry nothing, nothing helped, i never understood what Pythagoras, nor did i ever understood the laws of the elements, the law of probability, but still i mugged up just everything and scored handsomely.  What was the use of such education ?

The boy on the other hand,  utilized these precious years gainfully to learn life, to learn people, to learn trade and today he succeeded, he earns atleast five times better than me today. Money is not the factor, the confidence the boy gained is worth appreciating, the command in his tone, the way he presents himself is worth appreciating.

So the pertinent question that lingers to me, is education, the way that it is taught in this part of the world really helpful ? For the kid mugs up the entire year, reproduces it during exam and the next day he gets blank, he learns nothing in the process.  In a way he learns the topic by heart but nothing ever touches his heart. Thankfully, some steps are being now taking to overhaul the education system, I guess it was long long overdue.