Two States - Story of My Marriage

I am currently reading " Two States - Story of my marriage" and will post a review by tomorrow as it's like 'one fly' book with lots of masala. Well, this is about a Punjabi boy marrying a Tamil Girl and I hope that Chetan has used his humor well. On a lighter note, thanks god! he didn't write a book of a Marathi boy/girl marrying a North Indian boy/girl or else he also would have to say sorry to the owner of Bombay oops! it's Mumbai.

off to my reading.

The longest Journey of Rajdhani Express

It took them around 84 hours or 3 and half days to reach Delhi from Bangalore. The train started from Bangalore on Thursday evening but reached Delhi only on Monday morning. More than 2000 passengers were stranded on Raichur station which is at the border of Andhra and Karnataka. The alertness of the local people and the railway staff helped avoid a disaster as the train was stopped on time. Later they found about 100 meters of railway track hanging in air as the wooden sleepers which holds the track together was washed away by the gushing water. This happened at 5 in the morning on Gandhi Jayanti. Else, it would have easily become a catastrophe for 2000 of the passengers who were deep in sleep.

Well, the train was brought back to the nearest station and then was stranded there for about 36 hours. It started moving only on Saturday evening and was diverted through a different route. Finally it reached Delhi today morning at around 6. Only 2 days late.

This could be a good movie subject but then only for foreign filmmakers. Well, Anurag Kashyap/Vishal Bhardwaj/Aamir Khan?.. are you listening??

Some links from the TimesofIndia hyderabad edition covering the train journey.

Link1 , Link2 , Link3 , Link4

Tum Chalo to Saara Hindustan Chale

Tum Chalo to Saara Hindustan Chale series - This was a part of Lead India Campaign of Times of India

I think it's Shankar Mahadevan's voice along with the voice of one of it's

kind Sukhwinder Singh (Sukhi).

Confirmed. It's Shankar Mahadevan, Sukhvinder Singh and the lyricist is

Gulzar. Nice initiative by Times of India. More about this here.

My name is "Johar"

Kya kya Johar dikha rahe hain? . When you are frisked in US you do nothing. When your friend is frisked, you see this an opportunity to promote your film (guess what? the film is centered on the same theme). You actually question the whole frisking business. You take it as your own insult and decide not to travel or minimize your travel to US. Well that is United States of America which at-least does not have double standards and are likely to follow the rule of law for one and all. Incidently, Bob Dylan was also arrested/frisked on the same day for charges of roaming suspiciously around. Link here to a media debate on the issue.

Well, it seems that the same Karan Johar can bend more than his back for an issue which concerns him. In one of most cowardly act displayed by a public figure in recent times is Karan Johar apologizing for using the word Bombay in his movie "Wake Up Sid". I don't know what explanation he has given but it's sure that there are people in our industry who has flexible moral standards. One day they are condemning one act, next day supporting the same. Watch the video and see how he is still confused between Bombay and Mumbai. But then, this is industry. Reminds me of the song from Hero No. 1 "Main tere pyar mein kya kya na bana meena, Kabhi bana kutta, kabhi kamina"

Video Embedded from "You Tube"

Updates..

I surfed across some of the news channel for any news related to the train which is stranded since last 36 hours. And this is what I got. In the prime time news, one was showing conspiracy behind Sachin's food poisoning (they used the word poison some 70 times in 4 minutes). Well, gosh! I think they still haven't got the pathology report of what Sachin passed out the next morning.

The other channel was debating why Karan Johar apoligized to Raj Thakrey. It seems that Thakrey bhau is back into news and Karan Johar might have provided him the right podium after a long pause. Since 26/11 he was not getting much coverage. Karan Johar's timing is superb and his sense of humour is awesome. First, he tried to capitalize on "My Name is Khan" controversy and now he has given Raj bhau some priceless prime time coverage. The Channel found out that Raj Thakrey's daughter studies in Bombay Scottish School and was arguing that he should apologize to whole of Maharashtra that his daughter studies in a school which has Bombay word in it.

A third channel is showing that the restaurant where Sachin got his food poisoning is not the one which the other channel was showing. They went one step further and interviewed the manager who said that Dhoni, Pravin Kumar and some other stars have come but not Sachin. Great. point to be noted -

1) The first channel was claiming that it was Nehra, Dhoni and Bhajji. The second mentions about Praveen Kumar and Dhoni.

2) How come the restaurant manager remember Praveen Kumar? Hmmmmmm..

Next is what?

Ram Gopal Varma will visit the station where the train is stranded and will make a movie out of it. That movie will be watched only by Varma and his fans. (PJ warning - No fans at all, he as an AC now.)

Well, Ashutosh Gowariker might also decide to make a movie and it will be exactly 1/10th of the 36 hour ordeal. The title will be "3.6 hours Ordeal". The more the people in the train will suffer, so the people in the theater.

36 Hour Ordeal..

It's really a tough task getting up at 5 in the morning on a national holiday, and for a lazy bug like me, it seems like an ordeal. While debating over the importance and obviously the rarity of occasion, finally I got up at around 6. I had to catch a train at 7:30 from Secunderabad railway station and it normally takes around an hour to reach there. So according to my calculation I started early.

I reached station at 7. Was happy at my achievement. Well, Lalu might take the credit for the turn-around of railway but it's almost a rarity to find trains running at time. Though Rajdhani has an entirely different perception in my mind, I still thought to do a casual enquiry as on which platform it will arrive. The enquiry clerk looked like in a foul mood. I don't know what it was? the time of the morning, the frustration of working on a national holiday or was it that his replacement did not arrive in time? Whatever it was he was shifting his pot belly from one angle to another on the chair with a "constipated look" on his face. Yeah! I know how it feels like working overtime on a night shift. Thanks to my IT employer.

Anyways, the train was 2 hours 30 minutes late. Bull shit! I asked again whether it will get further delayed so that I can cancel the ticket and get a full refund? Railway has this policy that if a train is running late for more than 3 hours then the passenger is entitled for a full refund. He gave me a weird look and again shifted his bottom to a different angle. "pata nahin" was his reply. I thought to shout at him but then I decided against my original thought. There is no way to find this out until you actually wait it out. I had this experience before, until the system updates the late running status, you will not get the refund. So, I thought to wait for the next 3 hours.

AC waiting room was full so I went to the sleeper class waiting room. Luckily I was able to find a laptop charging point. I was happy as I could watch a movie now. It was around 9. I looked at the LCD screen which was flashing the train running information and for a minute I was not able to find out Rajdhani Express in it. Well, after a minute it refreshed and now it was showing 4 hours late. My experience with Indian rail has been really good so this was one of those feel good moments. Your opinion is vindicated and there is no better thought that that. I told my friend that the train is not arriving any time before 3 pm and it's the typical railway's trick to give you a slow death. At 11 they will definitely make it 1 and so on. He laughed at my cynical comment. Well.

Now, the task was to cancel the ticket. Don't think it's as simple as that because it was an e-ticket. The only easy thing about e-ticket is to get one. Believe me, cancelling e-tickets can be really tricky. The rule states that we have to file a TDR (depository receipt) and the process is available online. However it's more like you can file the TDR tomorrow. For a moment I thought that today's train might come tomorrow only so that I can file the TDR receipt properly. Well I came back home and cancelled my trip. Will go some other time.

At home, I thought to inquire why exactly the Rajdhani express is delayed. A train of that importance should find a mention in the news. After all, champions league is over and the channels are again news deprived. There was nothing on it, till I found this piece of news on web. Andhra and Karnataka have seen some heavy rainfalls in the last two days and it seems that the route along which this train runs (Bangalore - Secunderabad - Delhi) is heavily affected by rains. This has affected the train service in this area and logically most of the trains are running late. As simple as that. I was wondering why Railways could not provide this simple information to the passengers? (Sounds like a good consulting opportunity for the top 5 IT companies).

So now the question was where is Rajdhani and how late it is?

See the answer for yourself. It's only 36 hours late till now :) with the possibility of getting further delayed :(. The most logical reason is that it's stuck somewhere in the flood hit area and will be there for at-least for the next 36 hours. I hope it's stationed at some railway station so that all the passengers can be evacuated if needed. Was not able to confirm as the train running information is inconclusive as where exactly the train is.

Hope the passengers are safe and their ordeal ends as soon as possible.