Metro Trip via Indralok ..

I had traveled a few times in Delhi Metro and liked the easy journey which metro provides to the passengers. So with that in mind I boarded the metro at Rajiv Chowk few days back and contrary to the earlier experience it was a Jam packed coach , may be the office hours effect taking toll of my comfort.

Police Man literally pushed the last man in and somehow managed to close the metro door. So finally I was inside and the train was traveling at a good speed, you can smell all kinds of sweat in the vicinity but the air conditioning was still very comforting and the experience was much better than good old Mumbai Local.

In a Jamm packed train, a lady was trying to help her relative to get down on some station. They were both some distance apart in the train and could not see each other.

So the people were obviously unaware of it.

Old Lady: ( Top of her voice) Sussshila , tu hai na...
Young Lady:  Haan, mai hu .. ( quite Prompt )
Train Crowd : Few murmurs in a otherwise silent setup..

After 5 minutes ..

Old Lady: ( Top of her Voice) Sussshila, Inderlok utar jaiyo ..
Young Lady( Ofcourse Sushila) : Haan, Utar Jaungi ( little embarrassed)
Train Crowd: Laughing, Everyone seems to be enjoying this difficult train journey.

After another 6-9 minutes ..

Old Lady: (the only way she knows to speak) Susshila, Inderlok aa gaya, tu Utar gai ..
Looks like she assumed if she does not responds means she is already out ..
Sushila: Haan uttar rahi hu .. ( deeply embarrassed  ) , murmuring ..chalo sub ka manoranjan ho gaya ..
Train Crowd: Laughing on top of there voices

I thought to myself, Everyone now knows for sure that Sushila has finally got down on Inderlok station :)

Empty CWG Lanes

Its been 2 days that the common Wealth Games are over. CWG lanes are now open for the general public and I must say its a big relief from every day traffic hassles . There has one really interesting observation. People are still not using CWG lanes and they continue to use the other crowded lane. It is really surprising. What can be the possible reasons for the same :

1. People don't know that CWG are over: Since the CWG lanes still shows CWG written over it, people are not choosing it to avoid fines . Likely to happen, knowledge about current affair of an average Delhi hunk is not debatable. They at time even dont know about who is the chief minister of the state .

2. People showing anger and boycotting CWG Lanes: Highly unlikely.

3. Human Programming: As the people are using only non CWG lanes from past 13-14 days, they have been subconsciously programmed to use only the non CWG Lanes or we can say , they want to take the usual roads and are avoiding the roads less traveled. :)

Whatever may be the reason, I am just loving it !

Nursery Admissions in Delhi..

In the last blog I was comparing the ease of admissions in good Engineering colleges of India and USA, now take a look at even tougher admissions, admissions in Nursery for Delhi kids.

Their is again a huge demand supply mismatch of good schools in Delhi inspite of good efforts by the government . Their are more number of children running for fewer seats and the competition is breathtaking. The admissions committee of nursery schools devise a 100 point system for admissions and the point allocation varies from one school to another.

So the first step for parents is to fill the forms for various schools and they will be awarded points on various parameters which often looks absurd to me. The common criteria are : -

1. Alumni : If any of the parents have been alumnus of the school they will get 5 to 10 points . Now is it the mistake of the kid if his parents are uneducated or were not brought up in Delhi.

2. Neighborhood :- It is again a most important criteria and nearly 20-30 marks are allotted to it. This criteria makes lot of sense as without it the ambitious parents will try and put their kids in far located or may be best schools putting pressure on both the child and the traffic of the city.

3. Girl Child : If the candidate is girl, she will be awarded 5 to 10 points which varies from school to school. Now its good to encourage girl child education but is it the fault of the young boy or his parents if he is a boy ?

4. Sibling : Delhi school wants sibling to study in same school and provides extra points for it which makes it tougher for first kid or parents who wants just 1 kid.

5. Single Parents : Single parents are given 5 to 10 extra points.

6. Your views on Education System : This is a qualitative analysis of your thought process based on which the parents are awarded points..

One of the welcome moves has been the removal of extra points for the parents education. It has not been taken very well by the elite class of Delhi but I fully support it and even believe that uneducated parents can even be given few extra points to educate their wards.

So after the shortlisting of children based on points its the interview round, previously there used to be interview of the candidate (Kids! ) but now it has been abolished by the government ,we still have interview of the parents . There are FAQ of the same which lot of parents are reading and preparing for it these days .. the day is not far when we have classroom coaching for the same..

T are parents who gets zero points out of the this point system, does it means that there children are not worthy of good education ?

Delhi Auto Rickshaw Drivers

Travelling daily by auto in Delhi for last 5 months have taught me lot of intricacies about the behavioural aspect of the auto drivers in Delhi. Most of them don’t own an Auto but rent it on a daily basis, the rent for a single shift is around 250 Rs (12 Hours) and for both the shifts it is 450. So time is the essence for revenue generation for them. Few of the interesting aspects I noticed are:

1. They try to make up for the time lost by charging extra money , for example if there is a auto waiting for passengers for more than 1 hour, he will always quote higher price as he tries to make up for the lost time and this behaviours results in loss of more time. To get the best price always approach a auto which has just reached its destination.

2. Most of them want to talk to you and know what you do.

3. They understand demand and supply better than us, knows when in demand with too many people chasing them, they will increase the rate exponentially.

4. Very well versed with the current affairs, especially news related to the city.

5. Will never go by meter, in 5 months, I travelled by Meter reading just once.

Interestingly the behavioural aspect and the way of doing business of Mumbai auto drivers are completely different from the one in Delhi. Mumbai Auto drivers try to focus more on last mile drive whereas Delhi auto drivers are always looking for longer distance travellers.

Weak Infrastructure , An Opportunity ..

We often feel that India is struggling and China has moved ahead of India due to our weak infrastructure . The roads , bridges , flyovers , basic amenities are simply missing here . We are wasting so much time and energy working in these conditions . Life is so good outside , every things happens on Internet, you don't have to struggle to reach your office everyday.

I agree with most of it but two days back when I had my first Delhi Metro ride , I found something interesting. I think we have a great opportunity now to make a mark provided our politicians start working on it.

The Delhi metro is just amazing , the ride is smooth , metro stations are amazing and infact I found the experience better than what I had in New York metro and here lies the opportunity.

Most of the existing infrastructure in western world is atleast two decades old and India can easily adopt the inexpensive yet better new technologies and leap frog in the new era. We are not required to do the experiments which other countries did and simply pick the best of the world technologies which fits into our country. This will not only develop the new infrastructure but it might even give us a competitive edge.

The toughest part here is the political will and issues of corruption which eats into most of the resources. If we are able to cross these hurdles we can have the best basic infrastructure in the world.