In pursuit of CrAzYnEsS!

So it seems it took one more disaster, the jolts from the recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai, to wake the giant sloth of this nation of 1 billion. Or at least thats what it looks like today and as given the forgiving tendencies we Indians nurture, the giant may doze off again soon.

But this time it does look like a different awakening. I am not sure what exactly was different this time around than the previous attacks, most notably the attack on the Indian parliament in 2001. But this time it does look like, at least to me, that the way people are disturbed because of this incident is totally different from the previous ones. This is what I think explains this wide spread public anguish and loud voices to bring about a change:

1. This time it was death, minute by minute, unlike a big blip on the radar, at one point in time. The seize lasted for 60 hours which were covered in detail by the prodding eyes of media. People had their eyes fixated to their TV sets, getting updated about minute by minute actions from both sides.

2. The attacks were carried out in one of the most brazen way, one which took everybody with surprise. No one had thought that out coastline and deep seas were so unsecure that people could sneak in with so much ammunition all the way from Pakistan!

3. The shocking(and myterious) demises of top 3 security forces of India, all the the same time! When the news came that three top bosses from three different security forces fell simultaneously, people were shocked to the core. How can three popular chiefs fall in what can be called a “soft dismissal”?

4. The attacks had all the elements of a typical bollywood flick- corrupt, inept politicians, foreign hostages, black commandos, hand grenades being flung around. All this sensationalized by the media round to clock.

Whatever be the actual reason for this powerful response to this version of the act, I thank god that at least now the general public is taking it seriously and asking the authorities right questions. And the ripples have started getting formed already- state home minister and chief minister are already stripped of their power and asked to resign “on the basis of their own conscience”. At the center, the union home minister has been forced to resign “voluntarily” too.

I see a lot of activity on the blogosphere too, with people from abroad reacting sharply and caustically to the incident. Closer home, the reform lists are being prepared by the media(eg. TOI wish list) and I hope new home minister- P.Chidambram will pay heed to these.

Hope this is not an initial euphoria and we all don’t just fall asleep again. Not this time.

“I condemn this dastardly attack.”

“The wires were pulled by ISI in Pakistan.”

“I am confident that Mumbai, with its characteristic indomitable spirit will bounce back soon and show to the perpetrators that we are not scared and your plans to disturb communal harmony in our country will not be successful.”

O our dear politicians, Give us a break now. Don’t expect people to take it lying down again and again while you sit in your comfy offices enjoying the power you have been given for no real vitrues of your self. If you don’t act now, I quite seriously believe that we are going to witness something like what the movie “A Wednesday” showed. Watch first 2 minutes from this video:

I particularly have strong objection to the unshakable belief on what is known as “irrepressible, indomitable” spirit of Mumbai. Quite simply, I don’t believe that a thing like that exists. And whatever reasons we have to believe it exists, are actually not the high points about Mumbai anyway. The reasons for my this rather unpopular belief will take quite a few more keyboarding and I will write about them in the next post.

As an aside, there is theory doing rounds since this all started on 26th. There seems to be a logic behind the dates chosen for the execution of these attacks. The formula seems to be-

Date of attack = 13 or 26, alternately
Month of attack = Month of last attack + 2.

Look at the dates for last 4 attacks:

13th day, 05th month- Jaipur
26th day, 07th month- Ahmedabad
13th day, 09th month- Delhi
26th day, 11th month- Mumbai.

I am quite cynical that this is true, but who knows? These dates might be chosen due to some personal/religious/group preferences.

The headline will find an echo with the mind of most of the readers here. There are plenty of problems around public bus service in Pune and I remember when I came to the city for the first time a lot of people used to say it is deliberately kept in a messy state by the two wheeler production lobby. While this might be true, the fact that some of the problems in the PMPML buses are very basic in nature and this is the state in one of the better cities in India, amazes me to no end.

The biggest problems with PMPML in my view are:

1. Very few direct routes.
2. Low frequency of buses. You have to wait for 15-20 mins minimum to catch bus.
3. Hostile staff which still lives in ancient Indian PSU(Public Sector Undertaking) mindset.
4. Badly maintained fleet of buses.

Today, I wrote an email to the PTTF(Pune Traffic Transport Forum, www.pttf.net) of which I am a member about a bad experience my sister had recently with our PMPML bus service. Here is the email:

Hi,

Since, we frequently encourage people in this forum and elsewhere to use public transport, I thought of bringing up experiences by my one family member and my friends with our PMT buses.

It is a well known limitation of our bus route planning that we have too fewer direct bus routes and most people have to go to corporation to go anywhere from their destination. Not only its an additional hassle to change over, but it is often the most painful point in this public bus usage exercise.

For instance, a few days ago, my sister wanted to come from railway station back to home, at Baner. She went to corporation bus stop and located a bus supposed to go to Baner in around 15-20 mins of time. She boarded the bus and the bus start getting filled with people. After 20 mins, there was a sudden rush and people started getting off the bus and started climbing on to a different bus. People informed my surprised sister that the bus to go on the Baner route has been changed! And to her shock, she found the bus drivers and conductors standing there, smiling in mischief at the plight of the people. What there were thinking it was- a prank?

Anyway she changed the bus and climbed on to the new bus. After 10 mins in the “new” bus- hold your breath- the same event of bus change happened again! People started scrambling on their way out from the door to climb on the new bus yet again! Not to mention- the PMC people standing nearby repeated their “smiling at your plight” exercise again.

In the end, my sister, whom I had asked to use public transport, managed to come after 1.45 hours from corporation to Baner and was aghast at this callousness and inefficienct operations by PMC. I asked her if she noted the bus numbers and the name of the PMC people, but she told me that she was too taken aback to do that.

Before, anyone here starts to discount this as an one-off incident, let me tell you that this experience has been shared with me by one cousin and a friend of mine about 1-2 years ago too.

On this forum, we talk of metro(not too many supporters though), BRTS(quite a big following). But shouldn’t our first step be to make regular bus service reliable and customer friendly? Shouldn’t there be more direct routes? Shouldn’t the frequency be increased/decreased as per the latest traffic load? Shouldn’t PMC staff be taken to task when they behave in a hostile/callous manner to a customer?

I tend to think that the argument made against metro, that Pune is not as big yet, holds good for BRTS also to some extent. We can do without BRTS if the PMPML is run efficiently. But without an efficient PMPML, dreaming of BRTS looks ill conceived. This is just a feeling, so let me know if I am wrong here.

I would also be very eager to hear about:

1. steps, we as a group, have taken to improve PMPML.
2. steps we can take now to this end. I would be happy to volunteer.

Thanks,

And soon got a reply from a senior group member, who is known for his rebellious streaks, to trash this expectation that people should use public transport in place of private vehicles, in the current conditions of PMPML bus service:

The expectation is that this moth eaten institution of the PMPML is to replace all our personal travel vehicles, unless we plan to cycle or walk all the way, all day. All plans are hinged on this great hope that the PMPML with its third rate fleet, apathetic staff and clueless management is going to substitute 14 lakh pvt vehicles. The efforts to improve the PMPML are on for several years now. And we all know that the experience u have narrated is the rule and not the exception. How many of us use public transport and leave our scooter/car behind? Only those who can afford to use the rickshaw.

Hmmm. Sad, but true. But I would choose to fight the system. I hope as a group of citizens who want to improve things, we are able to bring some change in this area.

P.S. I have been just invited to attend a meeting of PTTF and the new GM of PMPML on Friday 11 AM. Since it is a week day, it would be difficult to make it but I think I should. At least once. Will update if I do go.

PMPML ! Here I come!!

Well, this is my status message on linked-in these days. Reason- My company after trying hard not to touch India office headcount in last one year, finally bit the bullet and shut down the India operations. In several rounds of layoffs in US office so far, one at the end of each “below expectation” quarter, they had already cut down the staff size by 50%. Well, the good news is company is now recovering from a string of bad quarters and hopefully will soon bounce back.

So here we are, 5 “IT guys” in newspaper parlance, trying to find shelter after the sudden unseasonal heavy rains. The things are going well so far with all talking to different suitors to find a match between good work and financial and non financial incentives. The 1.5 year journey we had at Tropos was fun and we really had a gala time together.

And coming back to linked-in, heck I wonder if its any good for job searching in India. How can recruiters come to know of the people like me who are looking for a job? If they can, I would be amazed because sites like monster will get you hooked to phone for hours in a day attending the calls from the dream sellers..

All the best to me and my partners in crime(read ex colleagues) in this marketing exercise of selling your self to the companies at a good bargain!

So here am I….after occupying so many blog urls before….hoping that I would be really really be using this finally..

To be fair to me, I didn’t like the names of my previous blog urls anyways..to the extent that I don’t even remember them any more… And wasn’t I busy going through the grind for so long that I didn’t get chance to organize myself earlier?

Anyways here is a serious attempt … Infact, I already feel an energy which I normally experience during my new year resolutions, so it does seem this will last longer ..

A big thank you for visiting me now… please keep coming back and keep posting!!

Cheers!

-nIkUnJ