The ride from Dwarka (Gujarat) to Ahmedabad

The ride from Dwarka (Gujarat) to Ahmedabad

Some months ago had the opportunity to take a train ride from Dwarka (Gujarat) to Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Probably the train name is Saurashtra Mail.
There is a family from Nepal travelling with us with the elderly gentleman travelling with his daughter going to attend a rotary meet in Ahmedabad. The elderly gentleman is into some business and this train ride is being taken during a period when ties with Nepal are all but smooth.The train leaves Dwarka at 1.05 pm, gains traction at 1.09. Fertile land followed by unfertile patches we reach Gorinja at 1.17.Here little greenery is visible. At  1.23 the train slows down as we go past Okhamadh salt works.  The train comes to a halt at 1.30.

The train starts again at 1.50, going past sarvodaya vidyalaya and hostel. At 2.10 it reaches Bhatiya,  fairly clean station. At  2.23 at Bhopalka we come across a guard in a blue outfit holding a green flag. At 2.23 it slows down, it gets repeated again at 2.35. At 2.39 comes Bhatel station. At 2.41 the train gains traction and from 2.51 onwards the landscape is fairly green.

At 2.54 it reaches Khambaliya to leave at 2.57.  Amidst fertile land we reach Kanalus junction at 3.19 and Jamnagar at 3.50.I had barely stretched myself when a Jamnagar family boards the train. Here papa, mummy and daughter (Pa Ma and Da) enter the coach and given the window seats they are in possession of i have to manage with a seat next to the passage. The Daughter's teeths are fairly clean  and all along the conversation with Pa is on NPAs of public sector banks and the defeat that no one was expecting for the right wing combination in the state of Bihar. Respect for different communities was another area of conversation. Pa appears to be well read man with a fairly good knowledge. The elderly gentleman from Nepal too chips in and provides vital inputs on the state of affairs and how Madhesis are being denied their rights in Nepal. It has been over seven months since that ride and yet Madhesis are still in search for a durable solution (bigger participation of the Terai in Nepal's polity).

As for the train ride,Hapa comes at 4.05, Aliyavada at 4.17, 4.31 Jamvanthali and at 4.45 Jaliadevan, a fairly clean station. For the past one hour the train has managed a fairly good speed and it slows down at 5pm before reaching Paddhari. At 5.27 comes Rajkot from where it leaves at 6pm. From Rajkot station we collect some well prepared Idlis handed by prakashbhai/pankajbhai. We also collect Bhagyalaxmi peanuts prepared at Old Morbi Road, Rajkot. At 6.45 comes Wankaner station, fairly clean. At 7.55 we are in Surendranagar and at 10.40 we are in Ahmedabad. The ride  from Dwarka to Ahmedabad was fairly smooth and the snacks collected from Rajkot coming handy.

The Nepal crisis and how political parties have failed to come to negotiating table ever since new constitution was promulgated was dwelt at length during the train ride. Though blockade has been lifted and peace has returned to the Himalayan Kingdom in the ensuing months there is still a long road ahead before stability could be the byword in Nepal.

 The train ride from Dwarka (gujarat) gave us a glimpse of the concerns that surround us and how negotiations could be the sole route to break the impasse on important billls in parliament (some parties have vested interest in not letting bills pass) and how coffers of the govt could see a big drain out if corresponding revenues are not in place.  As for MP local area fund there has been a fair degree of criticism and some mechanism needs to be evolved so that audit is in place.  When you see big cars parked near Raisina Hills one begins to wonder if local area fund is actually required.There should be an audit and repeated audit.

Meeting new set of people in Delhi Metro; why fares have to be low for New Delhi Station to Dwarka Airport Expresss line

There have been innumerable metro rides and this has brought us in touch with Buddhist Monks, Tibetans, North-east Students, Haryana Students, Jordan Tourist and others.

Rides in Delhi Metro

Rides in Delhi Metro

Rides in Delhi Metro were taken with the avowed aim of knowing people hailing from different backgrounds. James and Adam happen to hail from Cameroon, stationed at present in New Delhi to look for work and secure new frontiers. Speaking about "God is one", the two guys hailed those govt set-ups across the world that gave respect to every community irrespective of their numbers. They too believed that money power could not wreak havoc and those in pursuit of collecting  the news and presenting them should show a  degree of maturity. Then there was a couple from Congo, another hailing from Nigeria waiting for their respective metro trains.

Sensational news with sensational headlines across news channels was bringing disrepute to the profession.The need for a political control over law and order machinery was a must lest they go berserk and create disorder was an issue that most agreed with.

As ramped up security across airports looks to be a reigning reality, the gaps in security apparatus across institutions and layers of society need to be thoroughly probed. THere were some girl students from Kendriya Vidyalayas(KVs), not missing the opportunity to praise the KVs and the limited and yet  sometimes solid faculty they possessed.
THere were two students, each hailing from Uttaranchal and Rajasthan, speaking about privatisation that        education arena had witnessed and newspapers indifference to not report the same. Papers could report on the strides made by minorities and how we hailed their march towards seeking a responsive environment.

Stories


Metro rides across city of Delhi; meeting residents of Cameroon, Congo, Ireland, Nepal, Tibet,North East Students, Uttaranchal,  Rajasthan among others. 

Next to Dwarkadish temple we come across

Next to Dwarkadish temple we come across

-Rudra Bandhan
-Radhika Handicraft
-Shakti Stores
-Ramdhiram Prasad Bhandar
-Art Tailor
-Bhavesh Novelty Store
-Gandhi General Store (for soaps)
-Mahaveer Medical Store
-Gayatri Novelty Store
-Lakshmi Novelty Store
-Shringar
-Krishna Kangan Store
-M/s Gandhi Premji Pranjivan store (for stationery)
-Khusboo store
-Shri Dwarkesh Emporium
-Radhika Emporium

Near temple
-Dwarkesh Dinning Hall
-Maheshwari Bhawan & Dinning Hall
-Jai Dwarkesh Vastu Bhandar
-Krishna Variety

Vallabhcharya Road Crossing
-Shree Vrundavan Guest House
-Riddhi Communication
-Tamil Nadu Restaurant  Madras Masala Dosa
-Dharamshala
-Siddhivinayak Tea Centre (That bring us to the Siddhivinayak temple and how the security should be to the maximum)
-Tarang Tailor
-Gayatri Paan
-Gayatri Cold Drinks
-Bangad Bhawan and on the left side is vegetable market
AS you go straight you come across
Shri swaminarayan temple

Near Vegetable market
-SBI
-Bank of Baroda
-Jalaram Stores
-Lakshmi Paan
-Bansuvi Silk
-Shankar Novelty
-Mavani Fashion
-Dwarkesh Handicraft
-Tulsi Fruit Centre
-Raj Hotel
-Gayatri Fruit Centre
-Shreenath Dinning Hall

THis time around we could not meet Hudabhai  of photo studio in Nageshwar. As advent cinemahall was nowhere to be found, we came across Kaushik the scooterman who took us from Iskcon gate to Balaji Bhawan on the night we reached Dwarka from Somnath. On the day we were supposed to leave for Ahmedabad we came across one resident Jawahar who wanted to know whether we had visited Bet Dwarka or not. Taking tea from Krishna Viyay tea centre we came across Bharat from Jamnagar whose sister resided in Dwarka. As for meals the day we left dwarka we took from Annapoorna Bhajanalaya  run by Prakashbhai.

Our best wishes to Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan for winning the elections and the first woman President of the country, Ms Tsai, is supposed to take office in May. Hope she succeeds in bringing a robust economy and good fortune to her country.

The day we were supposed to travel to Gujarat; 10,000 vehicles to be registered, hit at the base of those creating disturbance (story revised Jan.27)

THe day we were supposed to travel to Gujarat; 10,000 vehicles to be registered; hit at the base of those creating disturbance


The day we were supposed to travel to Gujarat, the night preceding that was spent tossing about various things. Would we be able to get the requisite air connectivity to Ahmedabad to be followed by Rajkot ? Would the flights be in time to reach Rajkot if not early next morning at least by late in the night? How much hours would be spent at the Delhi airport and the same at the Ahmedabad airport? Would we be required to take early morning flight or settle for early afternoon departure? Tossing in the bed the entire night the sleep was hard to come by with various permutations and combinations coming to the fore. Rajkot would be somewhere between 1250 to 1300 kms from Delhi and on the spot ticket fare stood at over 19000 rs. This was in the second week of December.

High air fares and high taxi fares
It was on a Wednesday we took a taxi to the DElhi Airport confident enough the flights would be secured given the seats that would be easy to come by. Unbelievable were the fares and unbelievable were the cheers for the airline industry (almost full seats amounted to public cheering for them). The departure terminal looked to be deserted and the lounge from which the tickets are taken looked as gloomy as never seen before. For DElhi-Ahmedabad flight the fares for just one seat available was over rs 10,000 and for Delhi-Rajkot the fares stood at little over 19000 rs. THe taxi fare to the airport (south delhi) and back to shanti niketan (that too in south delhi; the entire distance a little over 16 kms) where we left the taxi to seek internet train tickets was around rs 510. Here the taxis in the national capital are fairly expensive with no move to introduce those in reasonable price tag.

Households laying siege with three to four vehicles
As we took premium tatkal train tickets, the thoughts went on the shape of traffic the national capital was witnessing with households which could manage with one vehicle maturing enough to lay the siege with three to four vehicles. Here the need of the hour is to have registration of vehicles through draw of lots and ceiling being not more than 10,000 registration of vehicles in a year followed by making the odd-even policy stand tall at least four days in a week throughout the year. This has to be followed by a vigorous roadmap that lets the elevated road corridor come up near the borders so that those trucks, vehicles vying to move to another State, say Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, need not enter the capital city. SEcond the realisation among residents that they should take out vehicles on the city roads only and only when it is absolutely necessary. THird be it any ground breaking ceremony sons and daughters deem it fit to celebrate through purchase of vehicles and this habit has to be discouraged. Households having one vehicle should be debarred from owning second and if still they deem it fit to have second an annual cess should be levied.  A complete database of number of households and number of vehicles owned by them should be drawn up as that would give a fair idea of who all can participate in the draw of lots. Earlier in the two-storey house there used to be two families compliant enough to own one vehicle each. With developer flats coming in, eight flats replacing two to three-storey house there are no less than eight to ten vehicles that see light of the day.
Those who would tend to circumnavigate the law by registering vehicles in another state and plying in the national capital of delhi should be debarred in the first place. Holding jansabhas on whether odd-even framework can be applied in future is no idea, most would argue it has to be applied three to four days a week for the entire year with exemptions withdrawn in a phased manner.   More important is to hold jansabhas on how primary health centres in each area can be ramped up, how the city government hospitals have to have requisite medical staff on rolls along with necessary equipments.

SAlaries they offer and multiple vehicles on roads
That multiplying of vehicles has a lot to do with turn of events in different sectors including media. In the media sector there are different range of editors commanding different level of salaries. Senior editor, associate editor, assistant editor, senior associate editor, senior national editor, senior political editor and a lot of other editors. When a newspaper recruits them it offers them hefty salaries which has no justification. Newspapers are within their rights to offer them huge salaries as full page ads can recover the cost. What an absurd logic. If the media had begun the process of offering middle level salaries and sensitising them on the need to own less and less vehicles this trend would have percolated to other industries.Normally we come across tees panne ka akhbar, assi panne ka magazine aur pachas editor aur badhte hue full page ads (A thirty-page newspaper, an eighty page magazine, fifty editors and full display of full page ads). Not only this amounts to multiple vehicles floating on the roads there are multiple aspirations on float. This percolates to other sectors like real estate, steel, construction and consumer durable arena. ONly if newspapers could cut down on their costs and desist from displaying full page ads on cars, vehicles, real estate and bonanza sale there could be some normalcy to their proceedings.

Paper reporting on salary hike
One newspaper in the first week of January reported the air fares have nosedived following low crude prices with Delhi-Chennai sector commanding over rs 8000 on the spot fare. Is it low? One newspaper in its business pages prominently reported some three to four months ago that the average salary of workers in a public sector car manufacturing company on the outskirts of the national capital had gone up by at least rs 16,000 a month.When unemployment is such a big issue in the country with deteriorating law and order aligned to that, was there a need to highlight such story. Only when the number of vehicles are brought down on the city roads there would be lessening of crime. As the vehicles get stuck in traffic jams they tend to regret the road they took and the timing they chose. As a result when they reach their place some among them (some among them) take to drinking followed by merciless beating of family members and domestic assistant. This is followed by tongue-lashing followed by abuse. The next morning when they reach their place of work and some among them lash out (abuse included) at their juniors/comrades followed by fudging of accounts. This is what some of the vehicle occupants go through when stuck in traffic rigmarole. There is a heavy cost to be paid for being in a state of snail movement among vehicles of different price tags as evident by earlier observation.

One paper had a story on Subhas Chandra Bose done by Ashis Ray in the editorial page. The piece detailed the circumstances leading to Netaji's elevation as President of Indian National Congress and how he was dethroned, a democratically elected President being shown the door. ON socioeconomic issues he was on the same page with other Congress leaders yet he had to leave the country in 1941.  Here if the paper could reach an understanding with ousted workers by offering them 7L to 10L as compensation and workers also agreeing to the same. Some would find this observation to be offensive and no outsider should speak but there has to be a way out.
How much the Cong as a party  swayed from the time when Subhas Chandra Bose was its President to the time when the House does not function. Taking padyatras is ok but you should offer tangible solutions. As for leaders of different parties there should be a bar on the number of times they take to travel by air in a year and attending a plenary session here, inauguration there, it is all done on public money and party money. Oh ho a plenary session has to be attended in Vishakapatnam, a party meet has been organised in West Bengal. Oh ho a conference has been organised in Kutch. A plenary session is in Kerala. It is all done on public money and party money.

As for those spreading disturbances in our area we have been told they would move out soon. If you want to wipe out disturbances you should wipe it out from the base including from the areas from where we are threatened to speak out now and then. For how long we would be threatened with their abusive violent mindless  tactics.

IN places like Somnath, Dwarka, Nageshwar Okha and Bhavnagar multiple vehicles zeroing in on city/town roads were hard to be discovered. So there were hardly any case of road rage or one flouting traffic norms.
As we write about these smaller towns/cities with a beauty of their own some were plugged to the scoreline 4-0. There is a lean patch and the turnaround some would expect to happen only if everybody would apply to the role assigned to them. Lean patch every team goes through and it should not be taken as a setback. Team members should eat slowly and not laugh while taking meals.
As for Brand India campaign terminating the contract of the gentleman was a bad idea. Already the community is shocked over the range of developments in the past three to four months.If a member of the community speaks out a series of hate mails are pressed into service. And herein most observers would say no such contract termination should have happened.  Authorities of the day have to be careful in negotiating different terrain and any needless controversy should be avoided. As for Keshari dal (pulses) the ban should continue.
When news channels  unfurl programmes like "Bada Khulasa" "Band Kamre ka Raj" they are bound to create more nuisance, more law and order problem. News channels should rise to the occasion and try to stay away from fly by night stunts.

TV Channel Broadcasting from Japan
One tv channel broadcasting from Japan had a story on new generation of returnees who flock to Vietnam. The story was from Ho Chi Minh City. THis was quite informative. And it showed the rise in two-wheelers across the city something hard to find when we visited the great city in November 1995.And so much has changed since then. And right now Vietnam Congress is holding its session in Hanoi. Equally informative was the story of putting 10 tunnel section in the sea bed linking ASian side of Turkey to European side of Turkey. THe underground rail section in Turkey was accomplished with quite a few challenges by a team from Japan. Besides they show three-day weather outlook for cities ranging from Istanbul, Jerusalem, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Cairo, Dakar, Lagos, Marrakech, Harare, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, Lima, Mexico, Hong Kong, Beijing, Islamabad, Delhi to Mumbai.

Snowiest Region and storm water drains in Tamil Nadu
Japan is one of the world's snowiest nations and in mountain regions where there is snow everywhere there are waterways and to irrigate farms water flows through these waterways and it also helps the snow to melt. THat brings us to storm water drains in the city of Chennai. These drains were blocked and rush of water from lakes and reservoirs added to the discomfort. Had these storm water drains in the city of Chennai been operational, the floods would have been contained to a large extent. THe floods in Chennai, Thiruvallur, Villupuram and Kancheepuram could have been contained had there been proper planning when constructions in different colonies were envisaged say 15 to 20 years ago. The storm water drains need to be desilted and enough passage needs to be provided for water to flow. Unemployment is still a big issue in Tamil Nadu and there is a sizeable section vying for opportunities. None of the political blocks have been able to address the issue.