Train 18 memoirs: Never let your dream die

My quest to explore the soul of ICF had become very delightful. My private list of the right people was more or less in place, headed by Trivedi, Vavre, Srinivas, Dash, Shashi Bhushan, Manish Pradhan and many more whose bosoms enshrouded the wish that ICF quarterback a project to make a modern train set. More we talked about the possibilities, in loose terms initially but in some detail later, it was clear that there were many who were impatient enough to contribute. Their pent up chagrin of the wasted was gradually turning to hope, what with my exhortation and incitement on day to day basis.

The discussions were more collective now, not so much in the fashion of one to one with both building of castles in the air. I sat down with Vavre and Srinivas frequently, and occasionally with many more, to make a very rudimentary matrix of what all would be needed and tick off what was achievable. A couple of areas which bothered me were the bogie (the sub-assembly which has the wheels and suspension and carries the coach) and the coach exteriors. The exteriors of our coaches definitely needed improvement and all our incremental experiments on LHB coach body had yielded some results but they were not good enough yet for a world-class train. As for the bogie, Srinivas felt that we could attempt a new design but I was clear that neither ICF nor any other institution in the country was quite there yet.

In one of the tenders for 3-phase electrics for 160 km/h a new type of high-speed Diesel-Electric Multiple Unit, we had asked the bidders to quote for design and supply of relevant drawings and specifications of a new bogie. We had a quote from one of the newly emerging indigenous manufacturers of electrics and controls in which they had quoted for a bogie to be designed by a European associate de novo. This tender was, however, stalled at the instance of Railway Board; in spite of my repeated requests to Chairman Railway Board (CRB) that this contract could help us build a game-changer rolling stock, he just did not agree to go forward with this. He said that he could look at it had it been an electrical rolling stock but, what with drastic curtailment in manufacturer of diesel rolling stock, this was a wasteful project. We bit the bullet here and discharged the tender but everyone agreed that the model of procurement looked promising.

Based on these preliminary discussions, a blue print of sorts was prepared by Srinivas and Vavre with some guiding inputs from Trivedi. As we were thinking of submitting it to Railway Board, we got an opening, which sure looked like an opportunity.

In November of 2016, a huge Rail Shivir, a sort of a jamboree for ideation was organized by the ministry in Delhi; a top consulting firm was roped in and a nauseatingly formalized structure for putting up ideas was put in place. As expected, all the units were goaded and cajoled to moot as many ideas as possible; the ideas had to emanate from all levels in the hierarchy of railways which employed some 1300000 employees. It was like an edict for railwaymen to ideate. A rat race of submitting ideas was on and the score was being counted. We also listed many ideas and one of them was to build an indigenous semi-high speed modern train set. The pan-India collection of ideas went through multiple cycles of filtering and some kind of a pecking order of ideas was created.

When I, with my team of some fifteen people, reached the camp, a three-day affair, we realized that the whole exercise was a charade which arose out of a simple remark that Modi ji had made somewhere that all railwaymen should get together, introspect and let new ideas emerge. So far so good. But true to the working of IR, what was happening was a hoopla of sorts with more than 5000 railwaymen herded together in a resort, happily kicking up some shindig, away from the daily humdrum. It was attracting great media coverage but the inherent dissimulation was palpable.

Soon it got worse. Eight ideas were chosen by the consultants as the top dog concepts and high-sounding presentations were kept ready for a session which Modi ji would attend. I was also chosen as one of the sixteen presenters, two for each ppt-aided allocution. How were these sacrificial lambs selected? God know how? I would think I was there only because the CRB thought that I could speak well. In the middle of some spirited revelry that some of us were broiling in late at night, I was summoned to a small hall where all the chosen few had gathered with the CRB to practice delivery. When my turn came, I tried to modify the content to suit my sensibilities with a couplet and was promptly admonished by the CRB, “Keep your ghazals and qawwalis for your club, this is a serious affair.” And there I was, shrunk away to parrot someone else’s words and sound convincing about thoughts which were not mine by a mile. Thankfully, the poet Wahshat Kalkatvi had some empathy for me:

Aap   apna   roo-e-zeba  dekhiye 
ya   mujhe   mahv-e tamasha  dekhiye
Haae re zauq-e-tamasha-e-jamal 
khud tamasha hoon tamasha dekhiye

(Look at your lovely face or look at me engaged in watching the display.
Oh, this taste for a spectacle of beauty! I am an exhibition myself, look at my exposition)

But many of these blokes actually took this infantile task very seriously and practiced as if Modi ji was actually going to redeem them for life. And many others, particularly the GMs who were not a part of this caboodle of burlesque, actually felt slighted and dejected.

Next day, Modiji landed in our midst and more than 5000 people were seated in the main hall. The motions were gone through with live coverage by the mainline media. I, with my fellow presenter, a senior officer from RDSO, parroted out the corny presentation content in the style of a declamation. I even got good reviews and congratulatory messages. Imagine my disquiet. My drama on stage was one shameful moment in my life and I would give half my kingdom, so to say, to erase my presence and performance from this puerile farce.

Shed this imposture, do not cry over the spilt milk as this was your own doing, not a vicarious spot for you! Uncover yourself in the words of poet Iftikhar Shaheen, “Ishq ki khud-supardagi dekhi, khud tamash bana tamashai” (I see the self-affliction of love, the observer himself has become an exhibit). In Shakespeare’s plays, the fools are often the sagacious, revealing the stupidity of the main characters to be the true and consummate fools. Heavens, let me have the privilege of playing the fool, like the one in Twelfth Night, when he says, “Well, God give them wisdom that have it. And those that are fools, let them use their talents.”

In any case, what happened to our presentation on a modern train set? It was relegated to some inconsequential hall and a subaltern gathering. We went through with it like a mock interlude as we knew that this would lead us nowhere in this congregation of underlings. It obviously resulted in zilch. Not that anything else from this pageant actually amounted to much.

We had to regroup. Within days we put together a rudimentary proposal and sent it to Board. We had done some preliminary costing and pegged the cost per train set at approximately 100 crores. It met, as expected, with sloth and indifference at lower levels in Board but by employing whatever goodwill some of us had in Board, a file on the subject did start moving. For a file in Railway Board is the key to everything; unless you have a file, nothing would stir there. Not that merely getting a file moving is a milestone of accomplishment, it is merely the first baby-threshold. As for more, go ask a million Board files which are either in perpetual motion or limbo or exalted constancy or in gridlock.

For a couple of months in late 2016 and early 2017, the ambiguity and ambivalence in Board’s files ruled. It was, however, something that I discussed with only Trivedi and the two CDEs. All the team members knew that we needed a sanction, a formal go ahead, but I did not involve the hundred others at this stage as I was confident that I would be able to sort it out. It was more important to see how prepared we at ICF were than to start causing diffidence and dampeners in the spirits of the dreamers.

“Alone a candle can only light a room, but in thousands they can even light a city.” (Matshona Dhilwayo). I needed all the dreamers. I needed all these dreamers to continue dreaming.

I must talk about the two circles that someone who influenced my working life a great deal tutored me on. We all have a large circle of concern, and rightfully so, as there is a lot always remained undone in our work area, our eco-system and our surroundings. We are, on daily basis, exasperated that this did not work, that was so bad and the system was all kaput and so on. So many times do we hear ourselves say, “If I was this, I would do that and set it right.” That is all very fair as we, as responsible cosmopolites, must be alive to the wrongs and speak out on our areas of concern. But in all this concern mongering, we forget the small circle of influence in which we can contribute, or at least try to contribute, directly. We omit to ask ourselves if we were doing enough in your own sphere of power, prerogative and privilege. Big or small, we all have this sphere.

There is an old saying, attributed to Confucius, or perhaps it is an age-old  Chinese proverb, “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”. Don’t we meet thousands who crib about the blackout but not many who make a torch of their own.

The poet Ahmad Faraz has expressed it beautifully:

Shikva-e-zulmat-e-shab se to kahin behtar tha 

apne  hisse  ki  koi  shamaa jalate jaate

Is  ki  wo  jaane  use pas-e-wafa tha  ki  na tha 

tum Faraz apni taraf se to nibhate jaate

(It would be far better than cribbing about darkness of night to go light a lamp yourself. Why think if they had regard for love, You, Faraz, abide by your own sense of fidelity)

I have always try to follow this principle as far as possible. The time to light the big candle of my dream had come.

An aside. Talking of dreams, there are these popular shibboleths, which among others, say to young people that you must live your dream or that you should follow your dream. But isn’t that a recipe to get lost in this big bad world? What I have practiced is that one must first look after oneself, even if required with some compromises, but never let the fire of one’s dream extinguish. You never know when an opportunity would stare at you and that’s the time to seize it. My dream was alive all these years and now the opportunity was indeed staring at me.

I had the dream that we in India would someday make a world-class train. I dare say I had the vision for my dream as well in the shape of a fast smart modern train set, something India had yet not seen. I was at the best possible platform to convert this vision into action. I had the great fortune that I had an excited, and competent team. I had the life-time opportunity, it was now or never.

But there were doubts. There had to be, among the wise and competent members of ICF. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves but wiser people are so full of doubts.” (Bertrand Russell) It was now my job to address them.

(to be continued...)