An Indecisive Indian

  Shakespeare , the evergreen Bard of Avon, and Ghālib , the greatest maestro of Urdu poetry, often talk to each other with gravity, and at times in jest, as time, space, cultures and languages converge in a surreal realm. I have been fortunate enough to eavesdrop on their tongue-in-cheek tête-à-tête frequently because they are, after all, my uncles. M y great-uncle Shakespeare and my youngest uncle Ghālib. I have been sharing the insightful dialogue between the two which always brings out many a deep and abstruse aspect of any happening in today’s world. This time I caught them engaged in a lively discussion about the visits of two prominent Indian politicians, the Moody and Raul, to the United States. As expected, their encounter evolved into a comical clash of wits and verses and all I do here is reproduce the same verbatim: Shakespeare: My dear Gaulib, although I am aware just as Antonio was in The Tempest that "… Travelers ne'er did lie, Though fools at home condemn...

  Less than a month ago, I wrote that while I would be the last person to belittle or downplay Vande Bharat Express as that would be like a father abandoning his own child, I did put forward a rough recipe for meaningful advancement of IR, particularly in the face of massive investments in Indian Railways (IR) which the central government has committed itself to.   http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2023/05/why-is-it-vande-bharat-alone.html   Modern trains and swanky stations have great visibility and therefore the politicians like to celebrate   them. But Indian Railways would not advance merely on the shoulders of these optics. There is a lot more to be done: to begin with, upgradation of track infrastructure and signalling system.   Little did I know that I would be speaking and writing on similar lines again but for a different reason - safety. This followed the Balasore rail tragedy of 2 nd June which has agitated the very core of our coun...