Adverse Effects of Bumps

I am writing this post on my Dad's insistence. He is more moved by the inefficiency of the system here. Much more than me.

The distance from Banswara to Pratapgarh is around 85 Kms. But the journey by the bus took more than 3 hours. This time, a passenger is able to do nothing, except sit and wait for his destination. The number of human hours wasted in traveling is so huge in India that it sucks the efficiency out of you. The journey, even a small one leaves you so exhausted that you need to rest another two hours. One day's work takes two days to complete.

I will give another example. When I was studying in Indore, I always dreaded coming home. It was the trip that I dreaded and not the actual being at home. Indore to Mandsaur is about 200 kms, but if you want to leave at any human hour, the journey inevitably takes more than 6 hours. The trains do not run here. They crawl. So what happens is more and more people flock to Indore because of better opportunities and they all avoid coming home.

But, if these trains were fast and if they ran at say, 100 kms per hour, Indore-Mandsaur route could be covered in about two hours. This facility would enable more and more people to remain in Indore during the day and return to their near-by homes at the day-end. The strain on Indore's Infrastructure to support more people than it can would no longer be there. This is a problem with all big cities and not just Indore. Even students could consider making trips everyday for studying if the transportation was fast enough.

All of this would increase the efficiency of us all. People wouldn't have to worry about getting leg room on the last train at day's end. There could be more trains operated on a single track if each train completed its run in shorter time. All along, railways' profits would soar too.

There is so much to do. If only I could raise my head and look around. There was this dialogue in Rang de Basanti- "system ke andar rehkar system ko badalna padta hai".

I don't think I am justified in writing this. India Bashing is not what I am doing. I am just echoing my father's opinion. They are mine too. But at some point we have to start looking for solutions and not just bear.

Huzefa