An Indecisive Indian

  I am just back home after a hectic tour of InnoTrans, Berlin, the biggest biennial rail exhibition in the world. Covid had taken its toll and there was no 2020 version so this time it was happening after four years. Not my first time at InnoTrans and I did expect the proverbial déjà vu. Looking at the advancement in rail technology with mixed emotions of my jaws dropping, getting struck dumb and inevitably, doing a frequent double take.   The gap between where we were in India and where the world, particularly Europe, Japan and even China, had reached was like a huge chasm. An eye opener and a reality check, certainly. But more than that, so numbed by our inadequacies after seeing the exhibition and fast swanky trains, I would readily believe Puck , a.k.a., Robin Goodfellow of the bard’s Midsummer Night’s Dream , the mischievous fairy jester who delighted in pranks, if he whispered to me, “ I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth In forty minutes.”   I would a...

  I am an elementary disciple of many poet uncles, chiefly, of course of Shakespeare, the bard, and the chach ā (uncle) Ghālib . I also have pretensions of being a lover of visual art. But how did my uncles look at painters and their artworks?   Although Anglo-Saxon art had developed as a unique English style and later, medieval period had a tradition of religious paintings, the advent of Anglican reformation was not very supportive of art as such. Nicholas Hilliard, ‘the first native-born genius of English painting’ was a contemporary of the bard and many painters had started making their mark but it was still not an art form which commanded great respect.   Arts were always patronized in India, particularly by the royal court, and great traditions of cave, temple wall and mural arts flourished down the ages since pre-historic times. Mughal emperors were known to be great sponsors of fine art. Individual artists, however, never attained the status of a great p...

  The third rake of Train 18/Vande Bharat is finally out and reportedly tested successfully at 180 kmph, after a wait of more than three years,. Gratifying news indeed, particularly for me and the team that built the first two; this being a fully-owned technology of Integral Coach factory (ICF), not put together through any disabling Transfer of technology. The improvements done in the train are welcome. When a product is your own creation, improving it is free of any dependence on a technology-provider, and this upgrade, with an experience of running two trains for nearly four years, was expected to supervene. Some details can be read about in these two reports:   https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/new-vande-bharat-trains-boost-travel-experience-advanced-features-indian-railways-1998603-2022-09-10   https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/with-all-trials-successful-vande-bharat-trains-manufacture-to-begin-from-october-ashwini-va...