A Shout For Change
Emerging India : Inter-city travel
Aug 8th
What in your opinion, is the best way to transport yourself from one city to another? Not the fastest, or the cheapest or the most hassle free. Inter-city travel in India is as cumbersome and frustrating as travel within the city. So, what exactly are the options one gets to choose from?
1. Railways has and will remain the cheapest mode of transport for the middle and lower class of India. Transporting millions of people across the country everyday, trains are the preferred mode of travel for most Indians. Depending upon the distance and the class, fares can start from as low as Rs.15 and can cost as much as a flight ticket. Sleeper class fares are kept low and in reach of the lower middle class. But, you get what you pay for, and in this class, in the name of affordability comes a dirty coach, a very very stinky and unhygienic toilet and an that stays with you even after the journey. Food served (not included in fare) is subpar, though quality has significantly improved over the past few years.
A/C fares, have been artificially pegged higher for reasons best known to all the ex-railway ministers. Packing sardines into a freezer should not cost your an arm and a leg. How else did the ex-Railway minister, Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav manage to introduce exclusive 3rd class A/C trains at nearly 1/3 the fare of that on a regular train? Added to this is the fact that he managed to somehow fit a third birth into the side sleeper. Pack more sardines. And the best part of these trains is the name – Garib Rath – which means – A charriot for the poor. If the poor man had that kind of money, he’d spend it on some food and decent clothing.
Railway stations do not fare any better. Important junctions and tiny little stations alike, there is an apathy towards hygiene and little is done to ensure comfort for travellers. Rest areas or whatever they are called, are dirty, dark rooms with a few chairs strewn around. People with connecting trains are left to fend for themselves on the platform and they often end up sitting on their luggage since there always seems to be a serious dearth of seating space in most busy stations. Railway tracks accommodate a whole breed of germs and species ranging from rats, dogs and sheep to human and animal excreta lying around in a mess of plastic covers, bottles and bags. Add to that are people spitting exclusive juices obtained by fermenting ghutka with saliva for a couple of hours in the mouth; and you have a recipe for the most extravagant fragrance ever.
One of the (not so) recent facility that allows customers to book tickets online is a boon and with Tatkal(last moment) ticketing and with travel websites allowing online booking, it definitely has become easier to travel, allowing them to avoid the great Indian rush and queues at reservation counters.
Verdict: Cheap but gross.
2. Buses are a nice option for those have the extra buck to spend and are willing to forego access to a toilet for the duration of the journey. This actually could be an advantage since you do not have to bear with a stinky toilet at all. Buses have been catching up with trains ever since private operators were allowed to ply on the roads. Goverment run buses were forced to match up with the quality of their private counterparts and have remarkably managed to do so. The main areas of concern remain poorly(hardly) maintained public bus stations and the lack of bus bays for private operators.
Another major concern is the quality of drivers hired by both private and public operators alike. Public bus drivers do not fear anything, and in an accident can simply walk away since the government protects its employees. RTC (Road Transport Corporation) buses are often seen overtaking when you think is absolutely impossible and often drive way too dangerously. On the other hand, private operators might resort to employing subpar drivers in order to save costs, thus endangering the lives of those in the bus and on the road.
Verdict : Comfortable, but dangerous.
3. Air travel remained a dream for most of India’s middle class until the start of the 21st century, when the entry of private operators coupled with increased salaries(thanks to IT) allowed 2nd and 1st A/C train travellers to opt to travel by air. Low cost airlines of the likes of Kingfisher and Spice changed the way India travelled, though this celebration didn’t last long. Airline fares are tightly coupled with crude prices and with crude touching $145 at one time, it was increasingly becoming difficult for the airlines and the government to bear the burden and this was eventually passed onto customers.
This fuel commodity trading bubble burst with the start of the world economic recession. The airline industry has had to survive through all the job cuts and salary cuts. While some of them have managed to stay afloat, air travel faces another challenge.
Tremendous growth in air traffic led by the boom meant airports got packed over capacity and air space got congested. Governments of various states decided that it was time to move onto bigger airports. But, this came a bit too late. By this time cities had vastly expanded and become ‘Greater’ cities and the only way to get a bigger airport was to build them outside the city. Public Private partnership also meant that the private contractor would not want the old airport running, lest they lose money. This effectively meant that cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore no longer had a local airport. Instead, citizens were forced to travel miles across to a location outside city limits. Lack of proper and fast connectivity rendered the once comfortable air travel into a huge traffic headache.
Verdict: Fast, but not so fast due to distance to airports and time needed to check-in.
4. Private transport or owned vehicles are quickly becoming one of the preferred mode of inter-city travel, often within the state. Traveling by a motorcycle or a Maruti 800 over distances farther than a couple of hundred kilometers is a great pain in the rear and lack of safer and faster alternatives effectively prevented Indians from traveling too far on their puny and uncomfortable vehicles. But, with the advent of newer vehicles, came better power and comfort, and Indians are now traveling far longer than their previous generation did.
Still, Indian roads require one of the highest amount of concentration on the road when compared to those of other (non-Asian) countries. A non-exhaustive list of hurdles and speed-killers on Indian roads include: potholes; manholes; autos that are either parked or drive extremely slow right in the middle of the road; buses and other cars trying to overtake when not-supposed to; tractors; shepherds with sheep/goats; straying buffaloes; well elevated speed-bumps; stray pedestrians; drunk bicyclers; naxalites and robbers. Coupled with these is the fact that most of the existing ‘highways’ are extremely insufficient, narrow 2 laners. It is only recently that a few of these highways were ‘upgraded’. I guess the government thought that we had sacrificed enough lives to please the God of roads. However, these upgraded highways were built for current traffic and extra lanes will be needed within a few years to carry the ever-increasing number of cars on the road.
The icing on the cake is when the day turns into the night when people decide to blind others using the dipper light. These lights almost destroy the vision of the driver coming from the opposite end temporarily, and many a time, I’ve had to either slow down or completely stop so I could see what was coming.
Verdict: Comfortable for passengers. Nightmare for the driver.
So, have you decided the best mode of travel in this country? Well, I shall remain confused.
An encroachment has no religion.
Aug 2nd
Encroachments come in two forms : public, and private. Religious places of worship have seriously encroached upon both public and private spaces and nothing is ever done about it. We should.
Lets talk about public space. How do most religious places of worship break ground? Someone places a boulder under some tree, and overnight the boulder is turned into God by local foolish inhabitants and the place then converts itself over time into a temple by building upon donations from fools. And there you have a temple. There are simply way too many illegal shrines all over the country, urban and rural. Its land-grabbing made easy. No government dare touch shrines such as these since it is always a touchy affair and a ‘law and order problem’
The recent Supreme Court order that prevents new shrines from cropping up has come is little, and way too late. This would have made much better sense atleast 3 decades ago. This is because removal of these structures is way too expensive now, both in terms of money and effort – safety and security aspects – needed to do so.
Talking about encroachment into private space, I write this article as I listen, or rather am being forced to listen to ‘religious’ songs of Batakamma, with thunderous drums in spurts. I have been blessed with a temple bang opposite my apartment. Every morning, millions of Indians are subjected to torture of many sorts ranging from temples’ bhakti songs to dargah/masjid’s morning prayers broadcast to the entire locality over loud-speakers. And may God help those with a marriage/function hall somewhere nearby.
A unique encroachment of both spaces at the same time is when we decide to announce an entire part of the city of our marriage. We roam about streets with the choicest of drums accompanied with a whistling, dancing and drunk batch of people all around – in the process, waking up every little inch of other human beings trying to rest. We clog up traffic behind us and hit drivers that honk. After all, we built the road with our money and we have every right to (mis)use it, don’t we? Yet another horror every year is the Ganesh nimmajanam when every street in town is a virtual parking lot for traffic. We also celebrate Deepavali with deafening bombs(as in firecracker bombs) and the smokiest of other fire crackers. And you thought deepavali was a festival of lights.
The police seems to have gone deaf with all the noise and fails to even try any form of noise and nuisance control.
I’m pretty sure a majority would rather prefer illegal religious structures removed or shifted, and would love to wake up to a bright, lovely morning, with the air filled with nothing but the occasional chirp of the bird and the occasional wind brushing past tree leaves . Alas, the government has to deal with the so-called religious organizations and senas that are nothing but a bunch of madmen and religious fanatics ever ready to destroy public property and to instigate religious sentiments of discrimination all over again.
Solution: India needs to develop a national demolition force – a team comprised of a couple of trucks of armymen/ or men from the Anti-terrorism squad and ofcourse bulldozers. Teams should be formed and sent based on the religion the structure deals with. (A man of a different religion demolishing a structure of another could seriously risk life in the hands of the above said madmen.) This demolition force could easily bulldoze atleast 3-4 illegal structures everyday. Policing in sensitive areas of the city could be upped whenever a demolition is scheduled. Several such teams across the country would immensely speed up the entire process. Meanwhile, the government must keep talking to the public in various forms of media to explain the entire process and to request co-operation. The government should also engage in talks with religious organizations and keep them in trust. This will help ease taking over religious structures for government projects such as road widening.
Finally, as citizens of this great democratic country, we need to open ourselves up to seeing our favorite place of worship vanish overnight just as it cropped up. We need to understand that it is for our own good and in a country with no dearth of religious places of worship, one would always find another.
Time to upgrade my wardrobe?
Jul 29th
A look at my wardrobe would shame even the most fashion-tasteless of people. My collection of clothes range from those bought during my under-graduation days, some of which have managed to stay even as I graduate out of Master’s. A few pairs of clothes bought before leaving for the US were so loose fitting that I had to donate them to charity (I was really obese). Some of the other clothes that went to charity were those shall never fit me again.
One (Woodlands) of the two pairs of shoes brought in my last life is still are as reliable as they were before. My Casio watch is relatively new, although cheap and very basic. One out of the two pairs of sunglasses (Polaroid) was bought nearly three years ago and I still love and use them. My cell phone was also bought more than 3 years ago (Sony W550) and I’m amazed at the fact that this piece doesn’t look outdated yet (or does it).
I believe in using things until they reach their end of life. This, in my opinion, is real value for money. While I may seem cheap and stingy, I strongly believe that being wise with the wallet pays off for itself in the long term. Also, I think I have already outgrown the need to constantly look like someone from MTV, and I simply don’t bother myself too much to buy something new.
Emerging India – Are we prepared to emerge?
Jun 23rd
It is a known fact that India is an emerging country. The kind of development in the form of new swanky offices, high rises, malls and pubs that takes places in my city of Hyderabad certainly means one thing : Be prepared for more. It also means that there is similar development in several other new cities across India. But, more of what, you may ask? ‘More’ includes fresh influx of people from the rural area to the cities in search of means of livelihood; more pressure on existing resources such as electricity, water and living spaces; more number of vehicles on the road and more people on buses and trains. The question to be asked: Are we prepared for the future? The answer is blatantly obvious – absolutely not! The posts that will follow in the coming weeks shall concentrate on different aspects and deficiences of the new urban India, and will propose solutions to some of these problems.
Let’s look at Hyderabad: a city with over 90 lakh people (Hyderabad is ‘Greater’ now) adds thousands of immigrants to its ever-growing population, everyday. Hyderabad has the country’s highest traffic density per kilometre – standing at 2337 per km (in 2007), with road availability of just 6% (again, 2007). Roads that were once a pleasure to drive on, like the Inner-ring road connecting Secunderabad to Tarnaka has now become a nightmare, especiialy after the government planned to take up road widening on this stretch. Several bottlenecks on my daily commute to Hitech City from Tarnaka include : a badly timed traffic signal at Parade grounds, a narrow stretch at Shopper’s stop, another narrowing of the road at the BP gas pump, ever-increasing traffic on the Begumpet bridge, traffic curbs and barricades near Somajiguda to let our Hon’able Chief Minister reach his destination every morning and evening, a narrow road at Chutney’s, another narrow stretch on Jubilee Hills which is due to a graveyard if I’m not mistaken. I have more on my daily ride – the best of the worst being three religious obstacles at the Malkajgiri junction in the form of the famous Church, opposite to which is a tiny church, and bang in the middle of the road, under a tree lie a temple – all in an unbelievable proximity to each other. The right turn that I take towards Rail Nilayam from under the bridge is another awesome example. A new entrant to the pain in the rider’s ass list of irritable traffic spots include the split in the divider bang opposite Axis Bank in Tarnaka just a few yards ahead of the flyover.
I’m sure that you have come across similar experiences either in Hyderabad or in your own large city. What does/can one do in a situation like this? I, being a huge believer of reducing pollution and of saving petroleum for the future would jump at the idea of travelling by public transport. If only I could find a proper mode of transport. Let me shed some light. The previous govt. did a huge favor to the citizens of Hyderabad by starting what we call a Multi-Modal Transport System. What was initially envisaged to be a huge public-mode-of-transport, including a train cum bus system turned out to be a big disaster. That was until the govt. started actively advertising about its services, at a time when new offices in Hitech city were cropping up every other day. These MMTS trains now run jam packed during peak office hours partly due to the large no. of employees working in the Software industry. The other part of the reason is the sheer lack of frequency of these trains, due to the fact that these trains do not run on dedicated tracks, instead further clog the already clogged rail network of South Central Railway. This also means that the routes do not serve a major chunk of Hyderabad citizens. Add to this the poor connectivity of buses and the sheer location of these MMTS railway stations.
I do not think I need to comment on the condition of travel in an RTC bus over 20 km.
Keeping these limitations in mind, the Congress govt. envisaged a new metro rail network that would run over major existing roads connecting the dots and covering gaps left open by MMTS and RTC. The tenders to this project created tonnes of footage of news and more news due to the fact that Maytas Infra, a Hyd. based construction company bagged the project. People applauded this move and waited eagerly. And waited, as we saw Satyam get into a scam, taking down Maytas with it. We continue to wait with what all us Indians (are forced to) have : Hope. The last heard news about it was a couple of days ago when the Chief Minister asked Maytas to reply in a week’s time about its ability to fund and take up the project. Originally projected to be completed in 2013, we hope atleast our kids get to enjoy the fruits of this ‘dream’, while we continue to drag our shoes along the roads for what seems like an eternity.
Next post : Intercity travel.
TVS Victor – A review on 5 yrs of ownership
May 20th
This June, my TVS Victor will complete 5 years of service, so I thought a review would help those wanting to buy a used TVS Victor (you can’t buy new since TVS has phased out its production), and will help some of you owning this vehicle decide the right time to sell it off. The TVS Victor is made to seem like a very reliable and efficient bike, providing “More smiles per hour” as Sachin would have liked to tell us in those ads. I would agree to a certain level that the bike is reliable. But so is every other non-computer-chip operated 4stroke, 100cc carb. engine. What differentiates one bike from the other, is the point.
The Victor is a 110cc carb. 4 stroke engine with 4 gears and with regular spoke wheels and drum brakes. On first looks, it doesn’t look a stunner, but you tend to get used to the looks and you start liking it with every passing day. The seats are plush and quite comfortable and the ‘pleather’ has lasted through these five years with not a wrinkle or tear. Alas, the comfort factor lasts only for a few minutes, as I discovered on longer rides, when my bum really starts to ache and pain to the point where I have to shift my position on the seat once every few minutes. Not good. The bike’s handling is average, as long as you don’t try gymnastics when you are maneuvering through a turn. Keeping the bike straight, I found out that the brakes work very well and the tires hold up without skidding or throwing you over. Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold true for bends and curves as understood from my fall at 10kmph on a slight turn. Rides on my bike have never been the same again. Braking, like mentioned before, holds up quite well and has triggered many a question from pillion riders if I had disc brakes. Once,my bike had to come to a complete stop from 50kmph since some wise guy had decided to cross that road at that ultimate moment. I braked and kept the handle steady and that was all I required to stay alive and on the bike.
The ride quality of this machine is heavily dependent on its engine. The TVS Victor’s engine is not a very smooth running one, what with terrible vibrations at 45kmph and then at around 70kmph in its 4th gear.
On trips longer than 10 minutes, you really start to feel your fingers feeling numb from the vibrations reaching the handlebar from the engine, especially if you are riding at cruise speeds of around 40-45kmph in the city. This bike either has a terrible problem, or has been mounted on some terrible engine mounts since I am yet to see any bike vibrate so badly. The suspension, on this bike speaks quality and has never given me any trouble. All the attention it needed was the one change of fork oil at its regular interval. The shock absorbers in the rear and the front really do their job in absorbing the cruel road conditions in India and hold up even at high speeds. One complaint, again, is of the poor handling during turns, which might be partly because of the suspension, but I cannot be sure. The ride position of this bike is that of a regular city bike for rides under 20min. Any ride lasting longer will surely get your spine asking for rest and over time, a deserving massage.
I have ridden bikes comparable to the Victor – Hero Honda’s Splendor and the Passion, Bajaj’s Platina and Yamaha’s Libero and found all other bikes to be far smoother and to have much better handling than the TVS Victor. The Libero was one bike that impressed me the most with its ultra-smooth engine and the sweet purrs of the engine with every gear shift. Surely, a Yamaha bike.
Now, the economy. ‘Mileage kitna detaa hain?’ – is a typical question on the mouths of every Indian even if the bike in context were a Hayabusa. The Victor definitely lives upto expectations, but what else can you expect from a puny 110cc, if not some decent fuel economy? In the first two years, whenever I calculated, I observed very high fuel economy, in the range of 75-83 kmpl, 83 being the highest that I ever noted, during the second year. Over time, and as I moved to a bigger city with messy stop-n-go traffic, the fuel economy started to drop down to the levels of 60-65 kmpl, with 45 being the lowest when the vehicle was due for a service. There is nothing more evil for fuel-economy watchers than dirty air-filter and older oil. Other factors which come into play are air-pressure, amount of braking, excessive acceleration, pollutants/oxygen availability in the air, and more. The list will exhaust you.
Quality of service, parts, and of the vehicle. The dealer where I bought my bike provided excellent service, and always made me a happy customer. There was another authorized TVS service shop nearby that also provided good customer service, and reliable vehicle repair. But that was Warangal. Come Hyderabad, and all I get are small, crampy service stations with technicians that look similar to those at the road-side repair shop. Not impressed.
The bike, in its first 3 years was a pleasure to ride, with minimum repairs and repairs came cheap. Soon enough, the vehicle started showing its age, with the plastic loosening at many a place, the one under the seat being the most irritating. The rear-view mirrors lose their rubber protectors, and the plastic turns an ugly grey from a beautiful black. The small storage space under the battery is protected by a cover with lock and key. This lock had to be replaced twice since it gets broken so very easily. The key, when it goes into the ignition and is turned on, cannot be usually removed without having to switch off the engine. Now, thats gone kaput too, since I can now ride the bike without the keys in the keyslot. Just turn the key to Ignition and pull it out. The tires on this bike held up their threads for a very long time, and I’m impressed with the quality of these TVS tires. I finally had to replace my rear tire before last year’s monsoon since I wouldn’t trust old tires on our country’s awesome ‘roads-to-be’ in the monsoons. The wheels, on the other hand, are a painful pair in the ass. I have had to true these wheels umpteen number of times, and these tend to bend and go out of shape with the slightest of the potholes our roads have to offer. Each time, I have to shell out something around Rs.50/- only to have to go back a few potholes later. Poor quality. The battery from Amco-Yuasa is an impressive battery that lasted these 5 long years without the slightest glitch ever. The battery finally declared its demise after the past few months of non-use. The ball bearings at the fork and the front wheel also showed their age or rather their inability to handle high quality Indian roads since they had to replaced recently for a whopping Rs800/-.
Overall, the Victor is a sweet bike, meant for the ultimately delicate, mileage seeking, back-breaking-ready driver who might forego his right to better quality for a lower initial price and reliability, something which this bike ain’t got! I’d strongly suggest that you don’t buy a used Victor if its more than a couple of years old, and if you own one, then I recommend you sell it by the end of its 3rd or utmost 4th year and get one of ‘em new computer-controlled Bajaj bikes since they offer better value for money for the same fuel-economy and for similarly priced after-market parts and service.