The Unreserved Indian..

This year many people will not be able to go home and be with their near and dear ones for Diwali, it’s not that they don’t want to go, they just can’t because there are no seats available in almost all the trains running, the airline tickets are selling at triple the normal price and even buses are running full. What is so special or unique about this situation? it’s a normal scenario, which happens every year during the festive season. I think there is more to it then what meets the eye.

We all are used to of crowded trains or the festive season rush, when the train seats are waitlisted and the Indian railways website refuses to open up. This happens during summer vacations, Diwali season and winter vacations. The Indian railways fails to meet the demand on each of these 3 occasions, which results in many heartbreaks. But, it will be unfair to blame Indian railways totally for this as they have there own constraints, and also the huge, ever rising population of India is not helping the cause at all. The airlines try to maximize their earnings during these peak seasons because they know that railways can’t meet the demand and people are ready to shell out extra to be at home for festivals, so make hay while the sun shines. We all know the reason for this situation and have learnt to live with it, but have we ever thought why we reached this stage, or what is the possible solution to this problem?

I have always felt that we as a country has a habit of not focussing on the real issues which affect us daily and makes our life difficult, whenever faced by such scenarios we simply adapt and hail the Indian resilience, be it travelling next to toilet sitting on a news paper whole night. No one thinks of pushing the government for fast tracking the development of the railroad systems so that high capacity trains can run on them at faster pace, we never take out protest marches to push for this cause. However, if some B-grade movie hits theatre in which some c-grade heroine decides to kiss another girl, all hell breaks lose. We don’t want our children to be exposed to these immoral scenes, but are totally comfortable if they travel near the toilet or worse on the roof of trains. What is the use of being a moral person when you can’t even live like a human being? People who have travelled in the Mumbai locals will know what I am talking about here. Thousands of people cramp in the bogey designed to carry hundreds, feeling proud that they are the mumbaikars, the torch bearers of so called Mumbai spirit. Government tried taking some action to make things better, to provide more and better trains, cleaner trains, but by the time these actions are implemented, the population increases and the increased capacity actually fails to cater even to the normal demand. But, we never try pushing government or railways to implement these changes faster; however a controversial book or movie is banned in matter of hours because of public pressure.

We have always hated westerners for their liberal culture and mindset, we don’t want our culture to be polluted by the so called immoralities of the western culture, however we never think twice before imitating these so called immoral people in our dressing and language. I will be a very happy person, if we also start imitating western world in developing the basics in our country and try to push authorities for reforms which will enable thousands of us to meet our families and celebrate festivals together. By the way, even I didn’t get the ticket this year :(