Bus fuss

I live in New Delhi, presently, and I was going to work this morning on one of the DTC buses, the red one i.e. the A.C. one.

The system in Delhi is different from what I had been used to in Calcutta. Here the DTC buses are Government funded. Thus, there is no realistic incentive on the conductor's part to ensure that every passenger buys a ticket.

Today, a random survey occurred. A group of inspectors got on and started checking everyone's ticket. In this process one frail man, clothed in the grime of his economic disposition, tried to get off so as to avoid being caught without a ticket. He was consequently grabbed by the collar, brought right back into the bus and given a not-so-gentle warning about the consequences of such an act. In fact, by the looks of it, they "challaaned" him but I am unable to ascertain his fine.

That's how things happen in Delhi. The poor are made to feel even more insignificant by the treatment meted out to them by those in power. In this city, very honestly, money equals power. If not money then at least your position in society does. If people need you then you are powerful.

However, keeping my socialist emotions aside, I will now go back to telling you about buses in Delhi.

As I said, the bus conductor does not have an over-riding need to sell tickets. His salary will keep coming. He is a Government employee. He does not work on incentives.

I have been on state buses in Calcutta as well. I don't know if the conductor has a similar system of payment there but they do make a significantly larger effort to sell tickets. In Delhi the conductor will not budge from his seat. The passengers will have to buy the ticket from him as soon as they get on. Thus, during rush hours (office time) when a deluge of people get onto the bus, the ones who don't wait around the conductor to buy a ticket slink away and occupy whatever seats are left empty. So, you see the fallacy in the system. Not only do the ticket-buyers buy the tickets, they also lose out the empty seats to the non-buyers.

I am sorry, but this kind of a system only consolidates the Babudom that is prevalent in Government agencies. It's an ignominy for a passenger to wait around the conductor and buy a ticket. It is the conductor's job to walk around and make sure everyone buys tickets. This will also ensure that errant passengers stop taking chances and either buy a ticket or not try to avail a free service at all.

I have been to Bangalore and there too the conductor walks around the bus to sell tickets. This is the right way. It ensures revenue and also avoids ugly scuffles that I happened to be a spectator to today.

Another thought

Love is not about acquirement. It just makes you feel familiar with something or someone in spite of the fact that no matter how hard you try, you just can’t remember what in the past made you feel this way. Yet the strength of the familiarity does not diminish. It just feels so right, no matter what the situation actually is. It makes you want to do things larger than life and yet not want anything back at all. The memory of it is more than enough to supply happiness for a lifetime.

Contradictory aspects

Oh no! Not AGAIN!
Yet another fine morning in February. Yet another morning when I have failed to live up to my own expectations, let alone others'. Why? Why? Why? I am bald, pot-bellied, out of work, friendless etc. Why am I such a loser? Can anybody ever answer?

As similar as the above paragraph is to my life story, I would like to think that I am far better of than the narrator of the above piece. I, for a change, know the answer. Yes, very optimistic indeed, wouldn't you say? The truth is that it is optimism that drives us on as human beings- striving, looking forward, hoping and desiring for something better than we alredy have. What would we be without hope and a dream? Sounds cliched? You couldn't be more right. Read on.

Good Lord! Not even these school kids pay me any respect. What's the problem with this generation? Don't they know how to value age and experience?

Ah! Experience. Perhaps more valuable than talent itself. In fact, you are unlikely to get a job nowadays without any kind of experience(read internships) in the particular line of work. But experience doesn't count for anything if you are too supine to even put it in application. For instance, this guy writing above mine. He may be old in terms of years, but he is still a kid. He wants his life to be served in a platter. He doesn't realize that LIFE is out there, there where he has never ventured out, never dared take a peek. Life is out there for him to grab hold of but he won't do so. He is slack. His imagination is dark. Showers of gloom seeped away the bright colours that once painted his life and his mind. Now he thinks he is old with enough knowledge about a world he perceives dark. O blind fool, your ignorance makes your enemies drool.

Enough! Now I must go. If the world will never acknowledge the uniqueness of my charcacter then I shall deny them my talent, my abilities, my genius. Bring forth the sword of eternal relief and let a rich soul depart to the luxurious pastures of the land of GOD.

Big words. That's all this man can use. Ah! Poor fool. He realises not the catastrophe that he brings upon this world by removing from it a senile, selfish character whose contributions to society border on nil. How we shall all weep the departure of an insignificant life, perhaps more than we do for the thousands of lives lost every year to religious extremism. Perhaps we will regret not having tried to protect this one life, maybe more than we regret not conserving the life of that magnificent animal which is sometimes aptly described to be burning bright. We may blame ourselves for not turning back to look over the shoulder when it did matter. We may look up in dismay as waves higher than imagination itself come crashing down on us, waves generated from ice that no longer is. Regret not, because you have NOW. Let THEN come as THEN did.

Long road up

It is but a tragedy that life's sharp turns can leave you facing a road so steep downhill that you would wish that you never had had to take that last turn. I am not sure if it is quite the appropriate word in this case, but irony is what seems to me apt to describe how downhill paths are far easier to traverse than uphill ones.
You might think that sharp turns are the best place to overtake people ahead of you. A happy thought. However, upon careful introspection, one may note that the ability to manoeuvre such turns is not one that everybody receives from Him on their birthday( i.e. the actual day of birth). There is a very high chance that the bunch of bratpackers right behind will chomp your heels off if you so much as perform an accidental tap-dance piece. So wear your Nike Air-soled Wellingtons, and wear them well. Of course, those who have their sights balanced well on the centre of the path, don't really need to buy new boots that often. It's they, who fall for the temptations of the picturesque side(sight)seeings, that, more often than not, need to plaster those pretty hues of pain.
Enough said of sharp turns. Let us now peek down that steep slope down, and contemplate. As I was saying, it is extremely irritating to find that what you are destined for, apparently, will make you huff and puff all the way to the hilltop instead of being at the end of a frolicksome, happy, downward slope which makes you feel that there is some invisible force leading you to your destiny(Mr. Isaac Newton might have something to say about that). So, what happens to a select group of dreamers is that they are too high in the spirit of imagination and follow, what seems to them , bread crumbs dropped by a certain Han(d)sel of Fate. Unfortunately Gretel and Co. don't quite show up to amuse and appease them. Instead, long before they've fully realised it, these minions of Unconsructive Happiness, are so far away from that grand, palatial structure on top of the hill, that even the bread crumbs that they leave behind them, become untraceable if only they were to look behind.
All said and done, don't for once think that those at the bottom of the hill are now in the act of living unhappily ever after. Ah, no. They have watched the beautiful countryside from the cliffs above. They now believe that that is where they are right now. So, they are at peace and in incomplete happiness as well. Why incomplete? Because this from where the sight of the heavenly appariton of a palace, is most vivid.

Uefa Champions' League Final 2009

Rome. The city of Gods, the eternal city. The Champions' League final - a fitting event for a divine venue. So, it would only be appropriate that the best be allowed to compete on such a stage. And so, the best they were. The champions of England and the champions of Spain. The foremost teams from the two best football leagues in the world: the Premier League and the Primera Liga. On a night when the Gods themselves seemed to be spectating it would have been a shame to not give one's all and everything, to buckle under pressure, to lean back and try to weather away the opponents blows. However, that is exactly what Manchester United FC did and so invited the wrath of the Gods of fortune.

Football can be played successfully in two ways: efficiently and beautifully. But who said that there can't be a third way by combining both these attributes? There can and there is. FC Barcelona proved just so. It had been a rising notion that England's Premier League was the best league in the world, and this was only cemented by the all-English final of last year and perhaps this notion would have been well and truly cemented as a fact had the same two teams from last year met again this year, in Rome. But it was not to be so. The Gods were tired of this inhumane method of completing tasks efficiently. After all, God created humans because they wanted to observe the beauty which sets them apart from other living forms on this earth. And so, the team which had once again shown Europe the beauty that is the game of football, struck their first shot on target in 90 minutes right at the last, but did so successfully. Thus was paved the path to Rome. The Catalonians were back in Rome, Catalonia having been a part of the Roman Empire before. The champions of England stood before them and the ultimate prize in European club football. Oddly enough, the opponents were called the Red Devils, as if waiting to be slayed by the team weaved by Gods.

(this post is incomplete)