An Indecisive Indian

Even as the cacophony surrounding Train 18 was picking up, thanks to odd presentations by ICF officers in various forums and the buzz being built up by the media, I  was awarded the certificate of excellence for transformational initiatives at ICF by the Minister of Railways in April 2018. While many of my colleagues felt that it was a befitting recognition of the humongous work done at ICF, there were others who attributed it to my closeness to Ashwani Lohani , the then Chairman Railway Board . One way or the other, It hardly mattered to me as one is used to awards and shields being decided on whims and fancies in railways. What I did know was that Lohani indeed decided on this award overruling others in Board who wanted to scuttle it; Lohani, in any case, is built in a leader’s mould which is always exuberant in words of recognition for one of his team. I must also mention Satish Kumar, the then Principal executive Director/Transformation in the Board who was doing a great job i...

   All the Train 18 shells were ready in the nominated bay, undergoing furnishing and installation of equipment. The sequence of manufacture of shells from the start on the underframe jig to lowering of the car body on bogies had been proven and most of the shells were already on bogies by September 18. The sequence, an archetypal of working in ICF, although carried out by Sri Shashi Bhushan, Chief Workshop Engineer/Shell, Sri Ravichandran, Production Engineer/Shell , and   their team certainly more methodically, has been captured pictorially here:   I was always quizzed by the media about the facilities that we were going to provide for the differently-abled passengers. What we do have on trains today is an apology; doing and undoing a job by installing something for namesake without proper space for movement of wheel chair and a purposefully designed toilet. Talk to some of differently-abled passe...

GMs of IR are allotted a hefty sum for entertainment. I do not know what the protocol for spending this money is; I depended on the secretariat to handle it. But it is certainly not meant for the GM to get together crony officers and party. Party? Railway officers partying? A bit of an oxymoron. In any case unless you can define a gathering of railway officers with spouses, with an unwritten code of separate seating for sahibs and memsahibs; if you tried to break this segregation too much, fellow officers and their spouses would look askance at you. Some booze and even wine now-a-days. Occasionally, some insipid and vapid party games which would challenge your sensibilities and shut down your mind. Some underlings singing at a stage who would soon make way for some sahibs and memsahibs to inflict the assemblage with some extra-euphonic and para-cacophonic singing. And, for sure, a dance floor buzzing with sahibs dancing as couples and memsahibs dancing in triplets, or even quartets...