Travelling in Indian railways is always an enlightening experience; especially for those endowed with the ability to discern the extraordinary from the ordinary. The other day I travelled a distance of 400 km on Indian railways and learnt things which I would never have learnt (nor would I have been interested in learning). Here are some excerpts.
It is said that time is the biggest leveller of them all. A wonderful dialogue from an even more wonderful movie goes something like "After the game is over, both the king and the pawn go back into the same box". But come to think of it, so is railways. You can hardly select the religion, caste or even, gender of the passenger sitting next to you. But I really feel that the gender option should be customizable (what say Mr. L.P. Yadav?). On a given day, at a given time, all the people going to the same destination are equals... with equal right to claim seat, eat, breathe, drink and enjoy the journey.
It is a well known fact that much of modern intellectuality has brewed in the coffee pots of various coffee house. Friends, philosophers and comrades discussed everything under the sun. Railways is the new age coffee house. Here, the future of local state governments are discussed and also whether saas-bahu serials must continue or not (and contrary to popular misconception, it is never a one sided debate!)... As long as the person next to you, doesn't have any personal enmity with you, you might get away with any topic!
I for example learnt the interesting aspect of an otherwise staid world of textile marketing, the Haj pilgrimage, the contract system and how the loopholes in them are taken advantage of. I hereby propose to include a frequent long distance train journey in all MBA curriculum. And I suppose everyone on this side of Vastrapur, Ahmedabad will agree with me....
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