An Indecisive Indian

  I recently wrote in this blog, https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2025/09/awarded-rewarded-and-thoroughly.html that there are many folks like me, sporting a few half-plucked feathers in our caps, who periodically get invited to be both honoured and humiliated at the same time. Honours for lesser mortals like me are like confetti, pretty, harmless, and soon swept away or worse still, like those glittery party-balloons that hover for a while, bobbing smugly above your head, and then, at the precise moment you try to look dignified, they slip, explode, and leave you with a face full of helium and the smell of fried samosas. My many experiences involved an invitation to be both bedizened and bemused, lauded and at once mortified in public, a ceremonial two-step I’ve come to call “the garlanded casualty” waltz, a dance I now perform with the grace of an arthritic ballerina and the resignation of a government file. I have, therefore, with time, become a trifle philosophical too an...

  India’s logistics ecosystem sits at a pivotal juncture. The National Logistics Policy (NLP), launched in September 2022, was designed to transform the sector from a costly, fragmented system into an integrated, technology-driven network, aiming to reduce logistics costs from 13–14 per cent to 8 per cent of GDP by 2030, thereby boosting trade competitiveness, productivity, and employment. Complementing this has been the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (2021), which seeks to knit multiple modes of transport into a seamless grid of connectivity, anchored by multimodal logistics parks and coordinated infrastructure planning.   Indian Railways (IR), by far the greenest and most energy-efficient mode, was expected to be the backbone of this transformation. Policy targets such as raising the rail share of freight from 27 to 45 per cent, doubling average freight speeds from 25 to 50 km/h, and achieving 3,000 million tonnes of originating loading by 2027 were embedded in the ...

  Maiñ pal do pal kā shā'ir huuñ pal do pal mirī kahānī hai pal do pal merī hastī hai pal do pal mirī javānī hai Translated with a bit of poetic license : I am a poet—of but a fleeting moment. A tale that shimmers… then glimmers… and vanishes with the wind. My existence, ah, just a sigh in the vast silence of time. My youth only a heartbeat, blazing bright… then fading into dark shadows. These immortal lines of Sahir Ludhianvi lit a spark in countless hearts, inspiring dreamers, lovers, rebels, and cine-goers across generations. Sahir! A life lived in verse, a heart that pulsed in rebellion, a pen that carved eternal songs of love, loss, and longing. He was the shā'ir (poet) who gave voice to an age. Sahir–Har Ik Pal Ka Shayar , our musical play, attempts to bring alive the tumultuous yet tender journey of this legendary Urdu poet. Draped in the fragrance of his poetry, illuminated by the fire of his romances, and shadowed by the anguish of his internal and externa...

  There are many like me—folks with some half-plucked feathers in the cap—who periodically get invited to be both honoured and humiliated at the same time. This blog is my humble service to that fraternity of ' garlanded causalities: glitter outside, slap inside'  so that they can smell the insult like stale samosas behind the garland.  After all, even Shakespeare’s Angelo in Measure for Measure knew this chimera of honours and awards, saying , “...Most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue...” . This menace peaks around Engineers’ Day—our annual silly season when engineers like me are dragged out of mothballs and decorated like Diwali lanterns, only to discover the fuse is still attached. A caveat though, some organizations do honour you with dignity, by Central Cabinet Ministers, et alia , but let’s exclude those rare gems. What follows is the slapstick side of the saga with ‘To Do and Not To Do list’ . Chachā (uncle) Ghālib knew...

  This is truly the silly season for travellers. On the Lucknow–Barauni Express , passengers sweating in an AC coach found no relief from the vents—until officials discovered why. The ducts were stuffed with bottled spirits . Smugglers, or railway staff with a side hustle? No one knows. But one shudders, and chuckles at once, to imagine the scene had the bottles leaked: passengers, instead of complaining about “poor cooling,” would have been glowing with “inner heating” and blessed with a ‘ spiritual’ journey. Meanwhile in Srinagar airport , four SpiceJet staffers were floored—literally—by a Lieutenant Colonel when they dared ask him to pay for extra cabin baggage. Whatever the fine print, one takeaway shines bright: if one army officer can down four airline men in minutes, the nation’s security clearly rests in muscular hands. Not to be left behind in this baggage saga, Indian Railways (IR)   now plans to imitate airports with a luggage-weighing regime. Soon, rai...