An Indecisive Indian

  The article titled ‘Vande Bharats to run on bullet train corridor, till Japanese Shinkansens arrive’, published under a New Delhi dateline on 22nd January 2025 in The Times of India (ToI), caught my eye with all the pomp and circumstance of a royal proclamation—only to quickly unravel into the literary equivalent of a magician pulling a rubber chicken out of a top hat. What began roughly as an affirmation of the publication's unflinching faith in official proclamations soon spiralled into a fever dream of fantasy—a heady determination to do one better than Indian Railways (IR), concocting unbridled optimism and wishful thinking, served with a garnish of absurdity. By the time I reached the end, my bemused disbelief had given way to hysterical laughter, the kind that escapes when one is faced with the sheer audacity of the hooey. One cannot help but wonder if the ToI is no longer just a news outlet but a willing participant in the grand IR theatre, taking every official whisper an...

A sagacious senior once shared with me a piece of advice that became an anchor in my life: while it is natural and noble to have dreams, four things must precede them—your family, your friends, your health, and your spirit. This counsel was a stark departure from the loud chorus of worthies who relentlessly urge youngsters to "chase their dreams." Instead, he urged patience, advising me to nurture the fire of my dreams, to let them simmer, not extinguish, and to wait for the opportune moment to bring them to life. When that moment arrives, he said, seize it with all your commitment and passion, guided by the timeless words of the people's President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam: "Dream is not what you see in sleep but is the thing which doesn't let you sleep." “Go wisely and slowly. They stumble that run fast” ,  Shakespeare warns through Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet, a reminder that dreams pursued recklessly can falter before fruition. The wisdom of measured p...

  The railway ministry announced on 9th January at a plenary session titled "Green Connections: Diaspora's Contribution to Sustainable Development" of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention that Indian Railways (IR) had achieved a milestone and the Hydrogen fuel-run train engine developed by it has the maximum horsepower in the world. Stating that only four countries in the world make such train engines, it further added that, "Other countries produce somewhere between 500 to 600 horsepower while the engine produced by IR using indigenous technology has an output of 1,200 horsepower, the highest so far in this category. The first such train is expected to make a trial run in Haryana soon on the Jind-Sonipat route. While the engine manufacturing has been completed, system integration of the same is currently underway”. I had last written on Hydrogen trains in 8th Sep.21 issue of The Pioneer titled, “Let all green initiatives not be just gas” .  A brief summary of this...