Skip to main content

Out walking In credible India

Five days into it and here are some preliminary observations-

Pros -

Many an airport facility (large like Delhi and Mumbai or remote like Ranchi) has been revamped to the point it has performed better than an American property especially considering the volume of humanity it handles.

Since people in India don't arrive in Yukon or Denali type truck monstrosities they are generally forced to pack light making the domestic flying easy on the boarding and deplaning part.

Many new flyover and express roadways are done and seem to perform a decent job shuttling gobs of people

Large cities with budget are erecting new metro rail lines to further the infrastructure required to shuffle people around at cost neutral basis

Generally loafer public seems to have been put away or put to use compared to my last visit 7 years ago

All of this almost makes my better half think that she might have the pleasure of my company next time she visits.  Not so fast I say-

Cons-

There is still lot of overhead trying to get train tickets.

Infrastructure especially roads while on the mend still is hugely inadequate for the job and there is no hope that it will improve- it is a problem of mathematics not a babu fix.

While getting on and off the plane is easy the in between part can be a groan since lot of newbies are availing themselves of the option to take off, and are unfamiliar with kursi peti and phunwa yakking protocolsm. It can make for lot of education and family matters being loudly shared with traveling public.

I might have to take classes to understand any spoken language especially by the service industry that seems to prefer mumbling at unusually soft decibel levels whereas everyone from cell phone discovering public to stray dogs go at it at excruciating pitch at all hours of day and night.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...
2 comments
Read more

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
2 comments
Read more