Train Travel-Its not just about the destination, Its also about the journey itself

Trains… The word itself ignites some nostalgic memories in me. Trains are something that has always fascinated me right from my child hood. The sight of the great long beast thundering past always filled me with a sense of awe. I even harbored dreams of becoming an Engine Driver which seemed like the coolest job ever according to me. Of course I assume lots of things seem ‘cool’ when seen through the eyes of an 8 year old. The Indian Railways have always been synonymous with the Great Indian Middle Class. A lot of Indian authors have used the train journey to project a lot of characteristics of India and its people.
So why exactly am I talking about trains? Recently I was involved in a conversation with some people who were describing the benefits over the Low Cost Airlines over trains. This got me thinking. Is the advent of such airlines a threat to the railways? Will we slowly see the degradation of the railways over a period of time? Of course if we decide based on the Indian Railway profit, this is something that will not happen in the near future. Rs20000 crore profit is a mind boggling number. But are the airlines a threat? I don’t think so.
Trains have a lot of inherent advantages. I don’t think I need to dwell upon those too much. They have some common disadvantages also. Namely late running, dirty coaches and stations, perpetually crowded etc...
So then what is the biggest disadvantage of a train? Well, it’s the travel time. Something that the airlines and anti train folks always keep reminding us off. Of course that is something that we cannot argue with. Obviously a train cannot fly. It has to go on its set track. It cannot even take a shortcut which you can do if you are in a bus or car. A plane can reach any part of this country in a couple of hours-Something that can take days even by the fastest train. And in today’s world everyone is in tremendous hurry. No one has time for anything. We are always in a mad rush to get somewhere or achieve something. Perfect reason for taking the next available flight you would think. No, this is where a train journey is best suited. We are stretching ourselves to the maximum limit our body can endure day in and day out. We never seem to have time to enjoy the simple things in life. We never seem to have time for ourselves.
This is where a train journey helps. I have always felt that train travel is not only about reaching the destination. It is about the journey itself. India is a country blessed with a tremendous amount of diversity. Be it people, culture, mountains, rivers, deserts etc… A train journey is a wonderful way to soak in all the wonderful sights India has to offer. Of course at very cheap rates, courtesy the Indian Railways. It’s a wonderful opportunity to spend few hours with family or with ourselves. Listen to some music, read that good book you always wanted to read or just sit idle and listen to the rhythmic beat of the train running over the tracks and watch the countryside fly by. If you cannot stand the thought of traveling in a second class coach, travel in a higher class.
So next time you have a vacation planned before deciding to book on the next available low cost flight, think if you can take a train. So what if it takes a full day or two to complete a journey. As I said earlier, it’s not only about reaching the destination. It is about the journey itself

Yes. It is going to be an early flight

Last few days were highly disappointing. Although in the last blog I had talked about India coming back home earlier than expected, deep down I hoped that a miracle would happen. Well, it did not happen and now India find themselves out of the World Cup along with Pakistan. I dint really expect India to win the World Cup, but going out in the firsrt round!!! Oh, it is so depressing.
Having said that, it was also disappointing to see the extreme reactions of the fans. After all it is just a game and we were not exactly the number one team in the world. We have a bunch of extremely talented individuals in the team, but we are never seen as a talented team. The only thing our cricket team is consistant in is being inconsistant. That is because all the talent in the team is not channelled regularly into each match. When that happens regularly, you have a talented team. We must also realise the enormous pressure the team is under. Agreed we played pathetically against Bangladesh and that was a game we should have won. But i dont think the loss to Sri Lanka was a surprise. It was probably too much of a pressure on each person. There are talks of widespread changes in the team. That is probably not the right solution. I personally feel that this was the best team that we had at this point and due to the overconfidence and lack of preperation for that one match against Bangladesh, we are out of the tournament.
Lot has been written about how the World Cup will be affected economically because of India's exit. But ultimately it is all about the game and not the economics. Lot of the teams are playing excellent cricket and I think there are a lot of excellent cricket matches to look forward to. Of course a lot of so called fans watch cricket only when India plays.For those folks I think this is the end of the World Cup. A couple of weeks before the world cup there was this big article in a paper that looked forward to a particular game in the Super 8's. There was talk about a record crowd, the most anticipated game in the world cup, huge sponsorship deals etc... for this match. Guessed which one it was? Well, it was the India-Pakistan match in the Super 8's. :). Now who will be playing on that day? Bangladesh and Ireland. Good Luck to everyone who spent money for anything related to this match...

For a genuine cricket fan there is lot more to look forward to in this World Cup. So lets overcome our disappointment over India's exit and enjoy the good cricket that is in store for us.

Will India have to take an early flight home from the West Indies???

Millions of die hard Indian cricket fans were shocked into silence when Bangladesh unexpectedly pulled of a so called “upset” win in the world cup. A lot has been written about the poor performance of the Indian team and the shock defeat and the hand of the “minnow’s” . But was it as shocking and unexpected as everyone believes? Frankly I always had the feeling that this was going to be a big test for India. Bangladesh is a test playing nation and probably the strongest among the 8 lesser sides in the tournament. Everyone seems to have forgotten the fact that Bangladesh won both their warm up matches convincingly. One of the wins was against New Zealand which was a team which beat Australia three times in a row. This should have set the warning bells ringing in the Indian camp. They should have prepared better for this game and realized that Bangladesh was probably playing as well as any other team at this point of time and that they had a good chance to surprise them. And in the end that was exactly what happened. Bangladesh played some brilliant cricket and they deserved to win. It is never easy to restrict the likes of Sachin and Saurav and the Bangladeshis did it wonderfully well.
What was strange was the fact that all the pretournament coverage, articles and analysis were all working on the assumption that the 8 regular teams will make it to the Super 8 stage. This kind of complete disregard for the 8 other teams was quite surprising to me. I always felt that something will go wrong, and that’s what has happened. Pakistan are already out of the World Cup and India have lost the first match which they were expected to win easily. So where does this leave India? Does the great Indian Dream of winning the world cup have to be put on the back burner for another 4 years? Well, that seems to be the case. But in the past also we have ended up being in such situations but have managed to sneak in through the back door. There is still a slender thread of hope for India. A lot of it depends on what the other teams do. But there are a couple of things India has to do perfectly to enhance their chances.
1. Beat the daylights out of Bermuda. We have to win and win big. It has to be bigger than the Sri Lankan victory. Why? Because it will ensure we get ahead of Sri Lanka on the Net Run Rate.
2. Beat Sri Lanka by a decent margin. Of course we can hope that Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka( which I think they can). In that case a simple victory over Sri Lanka will suffice for India.


If this does not happen? Well, then India can say good bye to the West Indies and take the next flight back home. The team will be torn to shreds by the millions of fans, critics and the press. The interest in the world cup will go down and it will probably result in large losses for the Indian Industry which I believe has put in tons of advertising money into this world cup expecting a good showing from the Indians. But having said all this, when the next series starts the Indian fan will again be there supporting the team. That die hard dedication never seems to go away. Lets hope that the teams rises to the occasion and pulls itself up with the help of the slender thread of hope that is remaining. Lets wait and see….

Bangalore Traffic....

Ok this blog is for something fun. Given below are some rules/tips about driving in Bangalore which i have written based on my experiences of driving here. The inspiration for this came from another article i saw regarding driving in a US city. Do let me know your comments/additions to this :)

1. All cities have the concept of rush hour/peak hour. In Bangalore there is no morning rush hour/evening rush hour. Rush hour starts from Monday morning 7 and goes on till next Sunday Morning 5am. (Really true. Sometimes certain roads like Airport Road can be jammed at 2am in the morning)
2. You will lucky if you can go at 20kmph. If you hit open stretch there is no upper limit. Your top speed depends on the vehicle u have.
3. Everyone has right of way(Even cows and dogs and Bullock Carts)
4. Never Stop at yellow light and in addition don’t stop for a couple of seconds after it turns red. And start moving a few seconds before it turns green (You need to be experienced enough to know when it will turn green-Little tricky as this can vary on a daily basis)
5. Here you honk the loudest you can. Also flash your headlights all the time. Some people believe that doing that will part the sea of traffic in front and create an open path. Something like what Moses did.
6. Road tarring works are permanent in Bangalore. Tarred roads are tarred again and again till it rises higher then divider on the road. This construction happens during the peak hours mentioned above.
7. Watch out of all kind of living beings on the road. Dogs, cows, rats etc… If you see one lying in the middle of the road don’t assume they are dead. They maybe just sleeping. So don’t disturb them and drive around them.
8. People like putting a left turn indicator and turning right. Also people like to put on the indicator once they are half way through the turn.
9. it is perfectly acceptable to assume you are in America and start driving on the wrong side of the road if you think the correct side of your road is too crowded or jammed for your liking. If you are on a bike, you can also drive on the divider or pavement. Perfectly fine.
10.There will be only one lane in most roads and no dividers. So its ok to complete the turn by going to the wrong side of the road and then correcting it when u feel like.
11.There will be no signs. So feel free to do anything you want anywhere. You can also take a U TURN right over the divider anywhere,if you think your vehicle can handle it.
12.It is unacceptable to slow down for a potential hazard on the road, however, feel free to slow down or stop long enough to visually inspect anything happening on the side of the road. Whether it's an overturned school bus on fire or a car with a flat tire, everything deserves a good long look.
13.If you want to cross an intersection without lights don’t expect anyone to stop for you. Push you vehicle into the middle. Pray that the huge lorry coming will stop in time and then figure out the next step.
14.Don’t expect your vehicle to be spotless and dentless for too long. Sooner or later you are going to be bumped. The sooner the better because then you don’t get worried to death waiting for it.
15.If people are waiting to cross the road. Don’t be nice and stop. You will definitely get hit from behind. And people don’t expect you to stop. So you are the loser anyway.

Will add more if i can think of some.

World cup coming...

Well, the Cricket world cup is just around the corner... Too long a competition if you ask me. But still more matches means more cricket to see :). All the best to Team India. I think we do have a chance.

Some technical stuff: Ever wondered how to use C#.NET to insert/update data in a Table in Database. Use the OracleData Adapter to bind the table in DB you want to work with to a Dataset. Do whatever you want with the data in the dataset. Then just call the DataAdapters update command. The Oracle Data Adapter will do the rest for you. Minimal coding is needed and it is very fast too. Do let me know code snippets are needed.

Bangalore traffic is continuing to explode. ORR is fast becoming a clone of Airport Road. I give it another year at the max.