An Indecisive Indian

The success of Train 18 Yesterday was the anniversary of the unveiling of Train 18. It indeed evoked some great nostalgia and reminisces kept pouring from many team members. Overcome, and not equal to writing anything afresh, I merely extract here a bit from the last chapter, the one about the success and not the aftermath. That, hopefully, later.  October 27 th , 2018! A bright sunny day! The day passed off like a breeze and I find I am still overwhelmed to describe the magic of the day. I can only try.   The unveiling was planned in the afternoon. I managed to get a peek at the preparations early in the morning and again around noon. There were some last minute hiccups but let me not go into that because even I do not know who did what to set things right. The entire team was around. Most of my time was taken up by more than ten TV interviews in the train itself; we had permitted a short preview to all the journalists. Apart from me, based on availability, some other senior officer

  Rip away the random reckless RIP routine!   The phrase ‘ rest in peace ’ , is a derivative of the Latin  ‘ requiescat in pace ’ spoken in Christian funeral services and communal worship to wish the soul of a deceased eternal rest and peace. One can frequently see ‘ r equiescat in pac’ or ‘rest in peace", engraved on the gravestones of Christians . It is also common to see R.I.P . (or RIP ), the phrase reduced to its abbreviation.   Whatsapp has created many problems for us. One of the problems is that we find ourselves confronted with the news of death of someone. A barrage of condolence messages start and all the members of the group, whether known to the deceased or not, whether the deceased or his relatives were a member of the group or not, feel compelled to write something by way of condolement. Some write some lines, perhaps from a saved template or some others simply type out a random RIP , rather recklessly and unfeelingly. Have you stopped to think and see how

  The   unveiling of Train 18 October 27 th , 2018! A bright sunny day! The day passed off like a breeze and I find I am still overwhelmed to describe the magic of the day. I can only try.   The unveiling was planned in the afternoon. I managed to get a peek at the preparations early in the morning and again around noon. There were some last minute hiccups but let me not go into that because even I do not know who did what to set things right. The entire team was around. Most of my time was taken up by more than ten TV interviews in the train itself; we had permitted a short preview to all the journalists. Apart from me, based on availability, some other senior officers were also moving frenetically on the train, giving preview bytes independently to media.   The CRB arrived post lunch and we gathered in the museum mini theatre; this mini theatre was recently commissioned and I was told that with its state of the art projection and sound system, it was quite unique in Chenn