Ruminations Of An Itinerant

We, from the still-developing world, sometimes find the developed world's concern for the handicapped a bit overdone, and not without justification.  After years of experience of train travel one starts suspecting that all public utilities are deliberately designed for difficult access, your handicapped status notwithstanding.  If you have ever traveled by train with some heavy luggage and a co-passenger who is past his peak of fitness, you will have many memories that will bear out my statement.

I recently returned from a visit to my son who lives in USA.  I live in Lucknow.  Lucknow boasts of an International Airport.  However its international status is restricted to operating Haj flights.  For traveling to any other international destination your nearest boarding point is New Delhi airport.  This involves using coolie services at Lucknow and New Delhi station and then a taxi or Delhi Airport Metro for reaching the airport.  You may be wondering why don't I travel by air on the domestic segment too.  The fact is that air travel to Delhi becomes quite expensive when you are travelling with 23X2 Kg of baggage, because all baggage in excess of 15 Kg is charged at Rs.250/= per Kg!  While some airlines slightly relax this rule for those coming in from an international segment, none of the airlines offering flights from Delhi to Lucknow do that.

Delhi Airport Metro is very close to New Delhi railway station.  However the short distance involves crossing a road and walking on a sidewalk or along the road for some distance.  Even a Sreedharan failed to connect the two through a subway!  I wonder if it was the futility of doing it that deterred him.  For ND railway station doesn't have subways connecting platforms.  You must ascend and descend from the FOB for going to another platform.  It being so, you might as well walk from the Metro station to get some practice!  And this lack of subway at the railway station in the country's capital is a little surprising considering that many smaller stations do have the subway.

Airport Metro, of course, has escalators and elevators for easy access to all.  Even better, they have an organized coolie (porterage) service with a prescribed fee that is very reasonable.  It is just Rs.50/= for one cart that can take three reasonably sized bags.  And you can take the same cart inside the airport, and vice versa.  The metro is so well connected with the airport that pushing the cart between airport and metro station is no hassle at all.

This time around on my return journey I reached New Delhi Terminal 3 in midnight and had to catch the Shatabdi for Lucknow that leaves from New Delhi railway station at 06:10.  I remembered having read on Metro's website that the first metro leaves the airport station at 04:45.  However when I approached the metro ticket vending machine inside the airport, I found a poster on it saying that the first metro departs from the airport station at 05:11!  I went to Metro website but the timings page was just not to be found!  The 5 digit helpline number mentioned on the website was missing according to the message received on dialing the number.  Inquiries with workers in the airport got very divergent responses.  As 05:11 will be rather late for catching the Shatabdi, I decided to take a taxi.  I was told by the person at the prepaid taxi counter that the fare for the under 30 kilometer distance was 1000/=.  Upon further inquiry he clarified that it had nothing to do with the time of the night.

So I took the taxi to New Delhi railway station.  The first coolie demanded Rs.1,200/= for four bags each weighing 23 Kg!  After prolonged bargaining and threats to discontinue negotiations, it was fixed at 600.  However the coolie said that for this amount he would only take the bags to the platform and not load them in the compartment.  After more negotiations, he agreed to do so after expressing his confidence that I would pay him "something" extra.  For comparison sake, the prescribed rate is Rs.50/= per bag.  It will help my readers to know that on my outward journey I had to take the same bags from New Delhi railway station to the Airport Metro station and the coolie had finally settled for Rs.500/=.

This state of affairs makes me wonder about what happens when a disabled person has to board a train that is not leaving from the 1st or the last platform.

Coolies are subscribing to "very low volumes with exorbitant revenue" model instead of "high volumes with reasonable price" implemented by the Airport Metro. This may partly be because of the back breaking labor.  This, in turn, is due to total disregard by the railways for ease of accessibility as discussed above.  If there were subways and trolleys and porterage was as reasonable as at the Metro stations, they could turn to the "reasonable price and high volumes" model.  This will make the passengers happy and also enhance their total earning.  Railways could also start accepting checked-in bags at a counter in the foyer and return the same at the destination as is done by the airlines.  To start with this could be implemented only at the bigger stations.

However doing all this requires meticulous planning, execution, and highly standardized operations:  Things that aren't really our forte. All these things are only practiced in outlandish places like star hotels and airports, not the real life places frequented by people like us.  After all we have had just one Sreedharan in the recent past!  And dear disabled fellow countrymen, all I can say to you is to be patient (pun intended!)

Veils Over Electorate's Eyes.

The ideal kind of politics that will build a better world will be real hard work.  Hard workers are conscientious people and unfortunately it is mostly the unconscientious who are drawn to politics.  So these politicians put up a veil to keep the real hard work that are not doing or are incapable of doing, carefully hidden from the public.  They fully subscribe to the wise saying "out of sight out of mind."  Sometimes this makes me wonder how did the saying "politics is the art of the possible" come about unless it means veiling up the real issues to the fullest possible extent.  While the real issues are objective ones and have the potential to unite the electorate behind them, the veils are emotive and mostly serve the purpose of dividing the electorate and keeping them divided. This division makes the life of the corrupt politician easy.

At times the public does get a glimpse of the real issues as it did during Anna's agitations.  Everybody united to demand a corruption free government.  Anna highlighted that politics and corruption have become synonymous.  The political establishment presented the non-incumbent party as non or less corrupt and the electorate put the power in their hand.  Now whenever the public wakes up from its slumber to ask whatever happened to promises on corruption and black money, it is dragged into a debate on Rashtravaad versus secularism.  This is the veil that is dropped down each time and will eventually drag the real issue into oblivion while deeply dividing the electorate.

The current charged up debate on reservations in education and jobs is a similar attempt to keep some underlying real issues veiled up.  The real issues in this case are several.  The foremost is persistent failure of governments to provide universal schooling for all.  Billions of rupees are drained off in the name of salaries paid to government teachers and maintenance of schools.  And yet we all know that the result is close to naught (You may like to read this earlier post.)  ITIs and Polytechnics that had the noble objectives of skilling persons who have received basic education are simply limping along with hardly any qualified and certificated electricians, plumbers or carpenters available in the market.  Even the private sector is opening up Engineering Colleges and Medical Colleges and not the equivalents of ITIs or Polytechnics.  Ease of doing business remains a distant objective and so there are not many jobs for the burgeoning population which cannot be absorbed in their hereditary profession of agriculture or other low skill professions.  Because of these abject failures of the political establishment, the only hope for the vast armies of unskilled and jobless persons remains a meaningless and learning-less degree followed by a government job.  (As an aside, the politicians have started calling these unemployable and unemployed people our demographic dividend!!)

And thus the hotly debated issue of reservations in colleges and government jobs is merely a veil to disguise the successive governments' utter failure in the area of basic education, skilling people and making it easy to do business.  We probably need another mass movement to enlighten the public to the fact that reservation is NOT the issue and that it is merely a veil for the real issues which are going unnoticed.  Though, I have a premonition that this movement too may be trumped by the politicians.

Narendra Modi owes his landslide victory to the fact that he drew public's attention to the unifying real issues.  Will he stick to these issues or will the veilsters ultimely prevail?

Are we doomed to admit that "छद्ममेव जयते (Veilster alone triumphs?)"  

Should We Wait Three Decades to Demand Performance?

Central government has sent a strong message to the bureaucracy to either perform or perish (POP.)  But they will let a bureaucrat stick around like a HIV infection for three long decades before deciding to throw him out.  Why?  Is it because it is only after three decades that he becomes senior enough to directly report to the political masters? Are you sending a message that it is okay to pester the poor public with your inefficiency as long as you dare not say NO to your political masters?

I am sure all of us long suffering citizens will be happy if this POP is made applicable to all bureaucrats from the date of joining itself.  Define their Key Performance Areas in quantifiable and boolean terms.  Let the appraisal be a 360 degree one where appraisal is done by public too for officials who are directly responsible for providing public services.  Yes, public, because bureaucrats are, after all, public servants.

Once you have a strong POP in place from the first day of service, the bad ones would have been weeded out in the first decade itself.  And then netas would not have to bother about having to deal with inefficient senior babus.  And if at all they try to punish a babu for reasons other than efficiency they will have to be very careful because the officer's credentials will be there in his defence.

And so our demand to Pradhan Sevak is introduce POP from Day 1 in government service.

Demand for Reservation for SMBs (Small and Marginal Brahmins)

To All Those Whom It May Concern and also the Unconcerned.

Dear All,

Not a single day passes when one community or another does not discover the extent of its backwardness that has somehow remained hidden from the society at large as also its own eyes.  It is astonishing to find that none of the communities mischievously labeled upper classes have yet been able to do so.  It seems that they have been duped by the label that the system has forced upon them.

And the fact that my own community has failed to perceive its backward status despite the indignities suffered by it, comes as a big surprise to me.  Upadhyayas, together with a few other sub-castes, are considered by the Brahmin community to be their lowest members sitting at the margin that separates Brahmins from others.  You could well call us SMBs (Small and Marginal Brahmins.)  There are derogatory sayings that highlight this SMB status.  One goes like this - "बैल, उपधिया, ऊसर, इन कर दैव दूसर."  It roughly translates to this - Oxen, Upadhyayas and barren land, these three truly belong to a different God!  The other saying goes like this - "मारिन गाय बैल किहिन बधिया, यही पाप से भये उपधिया."  This translates to - "Those who commit a cardinal sin like killing a cow or castrating a bull, are bound to be born as an Upadhyaya."

A more civilized explanation for the low status accorded to my community relates to our profession in earlier times.  Upadhyayas were teachers.  Other Brahmins thought of this, selling knowledge for money, as heretical.

Whatever be the reason, the fact is that we are treated as outcasts in our own community.  Those belonging to the upper strata don't like to give their daughters to our sons in marriage.  The reason given by their womenfolk is simple.  How can an Upadhyaya ever deserve the respect accorded to a son-in-law of our community!

When one is born in a lower cast, he learns to accept his lower status as a given and that somewhat blunts the pain.  But when you are born in the uppermost caste and then discover upon growing up that the higher sub-castes look down upon you with disdain, the pain is too much to bear.  This lowers our self esteem and keeps us from marching ahead in life.

This discrimination has been going on for centuries and the time has now come to rectify it through positive discrimination.  We call upon all political parties to ensure that suitable job reservations are immediately made for Upadhyayas.  It will help them blend in smoothly if the reservations are made in class 1 services including teaching jobs.

All Upadhyayas are requested to carry out a mass worldwide meditation to generate positive energy to gain the benefit of positive discrimination through reservations.  The date and time will be communicated separately.  Other SMBs are welcome to join in.

Yours faithfully

AK Upadhyaya
SMB.

;) :D

No Evidence

If health is wealth, what is money?
If you are serious, how can you be funny?
Why do you want your eggs' upside sunny?
And investigators have at last found out,
They don't have evidence against a rabbit called bunny!

Approaching ERP (Energy Rate Parity) between UP & US

If my last electricity bill had delivered a shock to me, this month's bill almost electrocuted me!  The steep rise in rates is having an ionizing effect on paying consumers' budget!!

I recalled a conversation with my son, settled in California, about his energy bill.  The prices had seemed quite reasonable, but I was not able to recall the exact figure.  So I Googled and found this chart that gives the average for the whole of USA - http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

The table says that the average price of electricity in USA in the month of June 2015 was USD 0.13. Taking the exchange rate at INR 66 = 1 USD, this translates to INR 8.58 per kWh.  The last bill from Lucknow worked out to INR 7.05 per kWh.  It seems to be slightly lower than the US rate.  But we have to keep in mind that a typical US household, with all its gadgets, heating and cooling, has a load of much more than 10 kW.  A load of that kind would necessarily have to be commercial in UP.  So the correct thing would be to compare our commercial rates with the U.S. domestic rate.  However I have a hunch that doing so may invite a sharp rebuke from our energy managers and politicians.  So we will stick to domestic vs domestic comparison, connected loads and total consumption notwithstanding.

So I feel it wouldn't take more than one more revision to bring the electricity price in UP at par with that in USA!  And that will be the day to celebrate our parity with USA on at least one parameter!

Only thing that may spoil the party is the thought that people in USA who have income parity with me at current exchange rates, are considered poor enough to receive grants from the state, are exempt from Income Tax and get free medical care!

And the only consolation for us is that we get twice as much voltage as guys in USA do.  In fact, not too infrequently, it goes up to 4 times as much leading to electrical appliances giving up the ghost out of sheer exhilaration!!

Governance and Rocket Science

Tweet by Narendra Modi on 07-Sep-2015 - "Space science has a vital role in achieving good governance...."

Our Pradhan Sevak (PS) has finally endorsed what we, the masters, knew all along.  Governance, after all, is rocket science and space scientists (SS) must lend a hand to the government in achieving it.  This, naturally, makes one wonder if the poor state of good governance (GG) thus far has been on account of lack of close coordination between government and the SS.  The PS, having made it to the highest position in the country, is now convinced that there is a need to move further up to find the possible originating place for GG.  His advisers seem to have convinced him that the ultimate source of GG is the Lord who is up there in the heavens.  With the present advanced state of space technology, SS seem to be the only people who can possibly take us close to Him for a consultation and then, hopefully, bring us back for implementation. Hence the tweet?

While the SS are busy finding ways to facilitate the meeting, they have, in the mean time, been tasked with alerting train drivers of unmanned crossing close to them on their route and alerting Durga Shaktis of the government of illegal mining taking place in their jurisdiction.

Don't despair fellow countrymen.  We will soon be in touch with the Gangotri of GG (3G!)