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There was a time when if you wanted a confirmed ticket on a train in India you needed to pay a bribe. I have heard many anecdotes on this, where you purchase a (Waitlisted) ticket and then contact “someone” in the railways to “help” to jump the queue. Reservation charts of trains were maintained by the…
“I will tell God everything” Were the last words of this little 3-year old Syrian boy before he died. This picture says so much about our world. About the wanton killing we wreak upon ourselves, our women and children, About the innocence of this poor boy unable to understand why anyone would do all…
Life in India is an obstacle course. Every day we face thousands of hurdles which make our life more and more difficult. And most of these impediments are the handiwork of people trying to make money by making our lives uncomfortable. These range from politicians swindling off crores of public money to hawkers occupying public…
I don’t think anyone in India needs any introduction to the social menace called autorickshaws, especially so in Bangalore. They and their drivers are Bangalore’s universally most despised creatures, the hate spreading across class, income and social status, bridging even the great IT/non-IT divide. Much of the complaints against them are on what they charge (if they agree…
On October 06 2014 Flipkart has shaken up the country and its systems with its mega e-commercequake, the #BigBillionDaySale, whose aftershocks are still being felt. A lot has been said and written about this. Here I add mine to the heap, a holistic overview of the entire thing. At 0800 hours on October 06 2014, like…
There was a time not so long ago which today would be difficult to even imagine having existed. I am talking about those ancient days when there was no way to meet people other than physically getting out of your house and encounter other human beings face to face. Young Indian people were the ones…
Kerala’s once-prosperous and mighty “Red Elephant” (aanavandi) is all but skin and bones today, but nursing it back to health is not Mangalyaan-science as explained in the previous chapter. However, there is a much deeper reason behind KSRTC’s present crisis than simple financial travails. Without fixing that, any kind of solution implemented will only be temporary. In the last…
The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has a long and illustrious history that precedes even the state of Kerala or India. It starts in 1937 when the Travancore State Transport Department was constituted by HH Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the Maharaja of Travancore. The first buses were imported from England. Post independence the TSTD was incorporated as an…
The recently released Airtel ad doing rounds on TV has been under a lot of fire from misogynist and patriarch-types because they dared to depict a woman who is both the husband’s boss at office and (apparently) earns more than him! So #AgainstIndianCulture! What in the world?? How dare they!! Some things and people in…
The average front-engined bus in India is just a truck with seats mounted in its back and a roof over them as bus operators just buy truck chassis and build bus bodies on them. These are not just horribly inefficient but also uncomfortable and back-breaking. Almost everywhere in the world buses are always back-engined and operators buy real buses and…
This happened sometime back. It was around 10 pm at night and I was waiting to cross the road at a junction with a traffic signal in Bangalore. As soon as the signals for vehicles to pass turned red, the few cars that were on the road stopped obediently and the alarm sounded indicating pedestrians could…
“Sir, all you need to do is just walk into our store!” This phrase is used by customer service people in India like it is the magic spell. When you hit a deadwall trying to grapple over bad the bad phone connection with the customer care executive help with your aforesaid bad phone connection, they…
