Recession, No Fly Zone Aur Meri Gharibi

I was sitting in a day-long meeting today. You know how Saturday meetings are..they start off interesting but then as the day wears on, your mind revolts and refuses to pay attention.Constantly tugging at your freedom genes and taunting you for sitting through office on a Saturday. Suddenly, I thought I heard the words No Fly Zone. Lost as I was in my own sweet world, it took me 10-15 seconds to re-orient myself. Did I really hear those words? Was I sitting through some National Security Briefing somewhere?

I wanted to ask what was this No Fly Zone. I was looking around hoping someone else would. Sometimes, being a respected manager is about letting someone else ask the dumb question. Bingo! Sales guy, couldn't contain his curiosity and asks the question.

So apparently, this is what it is. Previously our company had a policy of giving us air travel for distances that wud involve train travel of 12 hours or more. Then some hack did an analysis, and decided that if we increase that to 14 hours, then we would save a lot more money. And presto, Hyderabad has become a No-Fly Zone. Earlier we used to fly to Chennai/Bangalore or Mumbai, but now we have to go by train.

And that is not a comfortable experience.

Invariably, we are summoned to Bangalore with less than a week's notice and it is well nigh impossible to get a confirmed ticket with a week's notice on the Indian Railways in the summer months. You would think tatkal booking should take care of the problem? I would too, but then you and I did not account for our centralised ticketing team that can botch things up incredibly [Sorry sir! System crashed!]

I ended up traveling in that train that contributes most to the Legend of Lalu Prasad Yadav. The messiah of the Indian Railways. The man who has made it the most profitable venture in India today. Not since, the British laid the first rail road in India, back in 1854, has the Indian Railways seen a man of this caliber. Ladies and gentlemen, I traveled by the Gharib Rath.

The genius of the train, is the way in which every available crevice has been utilised to put in a berth and charge the customer for the same. There is air-conditioning, but then again from the Seldom-Works factory, somewhere in Bihar. They rent out these blankets and pillows for Rs.25/-, its like a palliative, to make u think the air-conditioning works! Its not all bad, it looks decent. My own first reaction, when I boarded was "Not bad!!"



The worst part is in their endeavor to fit in all these extra people in one standard coach, theyve managed to shave off a few inches from each berth. Mr.Lalu's strategic inch reduction and my own profligate inch surplus, make for one really painful journey!