Hydrogen Hallucinations & Hyperloop Hoopla: A Celestial Dialogue Between Shakespeare and Ghālib

Ta-da! And now, for the next act in the theatre of the absurd. Indian Railways (IR) is now galloping boldly into the brave new world of Hydrogen and Hyperloop—a world where physics bows to press releases and engineering is powered by emojis. The media, true to form, has inflated these nascent initiatives to Himalayan proportions, as if Hydrogen will waft us to net-zero overnight and Hyperloop will have us zipping from Dadar to Dhanbad in ten minutes flat.

My venerable great-uncle Shakespeare and my ever-acerbic chachā (uncle) Ghālib, nestled in their celestial lounge (complete with shisha bar and poetic banter), looked upon this spectacle with bemused disdain. Unexpectedly, they did not argue. They merely sipped their ambrosial cocktails and watched silently, minds aflutter with verse and vinegar.

But worry not, dear reader. Thanks to my inter-dimensional, divine WiFi, their mental murmurings pinged directly into my brain—a cosmic WhatsApp chat, if you will. And so, I present to you their unspoken yet unmistakably eloquent commentary verbatim:

Ghālib (raising his brow): Mere firangi dost (My foreigner friend), 

Hazāroñ ḳhvāhisheñ aisī ki har ḳhvāhish pe dam nikle

Bahut nikle mere armān lekin phir bhī kam nikle

(ḳhvāhisheñ: desires, armān: ambition. Thousands of desires I have, each worth dying for; many of them did came true but yet too few of them.)

These railway wallas, I find, have no shortage of desires either—percentages flying like pigeons in Chandni Chowk, every railway board handout now contains more percentages than a stockbroker’s portfolio with each project completion eternally "90-95% done", they celebrate these percentages with none of them ever reaching 100. Like my ghazals, they promise much and deliver heartbreak.

Thī ḳhabar garm ki Ghālib ke uḌeñge purze 

dekhne ham bhī ga.e the pa tamāshā na huā

(tamāshā: spectacle (of completion). Literally, there was a promise that I would be blown to smithereens (by the beloved) and I too went to see the spectacle, but it turned out to be a damp squib.)

Shakespeare (stroking his ethereal beard): Yes, my desi (Indian) buddy, I think I spoke too early through Cressida in Troilus and Cressida, that "…Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing…". In case of these IR chappies, "…Things won be damned; joy’s soul lies in the showing…" and making it a bit stern just for a comparison, as the villain Richard said in Richard III, “…I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ, And seem a saint when most I play the devil.” with the villainy being the trumpet and scripture being their press briefings.

Whether it is the much-touted Vande Bharat Sleeper, endlessly re-inaugurated like a film star on a comeback tour, or the Mumbai–Ahmedabad bullet train that gallops only in PowerPoint, or Kavach, poor Kavach, which has become the Hamlet of railway safety systems, announced grandly, delayed tragically, tested repeatedly, execution is endlessly just around the next fiscal quarter. “Action is eloquence...”? Go boil your head, Volumnia from Coriolanus, for these rail guys,  “If eloquence is winning people over, what price the action? None”.

Ghālib (sniffing ethereally): Arre, Billee Barad (What Billy the bard), it is not only your sub-par sayings which are being turned on their head. I had said, quite innocently: 

Nā-karda gunāhoñ kī bhī hasrat kī mile daad 

yā rab agar in karda gunāhoñ kī sazā hai

(Nā-karda: not done, gunāhoñ: crime, fault, hasrat: unfulfilled desire, wistful longing. A reckoning of kudos for sins uncommitted is my wistful desire,—after all, if there is a punishment for the sins.)

Now, since doing anything is punishable on IR, these guys have taken it a step farther, they want rewards for not doing:

Nā-karda kaamoñ kī bhī hasrat kī mile daad 

yā rab agar in karda kaamoñ kī sazā hai

(I am wistful that I be commended for not doing any of the doable jobs because—after all, there is a punishment for all the good deeds.)

Ah, Germany—the birthplace of the Hydrogen train where it whinnied into the world with much fanfare. But now, even its proud Teutonic parents are tiptoeing away like it just broke a vase at a family gathering. And yet, here we are in India, electrifying every inch of track with the gusto of a Diwali decorator, while simultaneously whispering sweet nothings to Hydrogen trains. For the ghosts of steam engines past? Are we building them a spectral express to the afterlife? It is like installing a fireplace in the Thar desert.

Bāzīcha-e-atfāl hai duniyā mire aage 

hotā hai shab-o-roz tamāshā mire aage 

(bāzīcha-e-atfāl: children’s play, shab-o-roz: night and day, tamāshā: spectacle. Interpreted as, IR’s world is a children's bauble and I watch all the happenings here in detached indifference as I have sorted them out as something which is nothing more than sheer showbaazi, just showmanship. 

Shakespeare (smirking): Oh my dervish buddy, what visionary planning in cooking up hydrogen dreams in an electric kitchen! I must invent a stronger line for Robin in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, "…Lord, what fools these mortals be!". What green magic is this Hydrogen, pray? Created through energy-guzzling electrolysis, transported in costly containers to remote hills, and stored in gargantuan installations for a heritage train that runs once a day? And that too after we have electrified hearts, minds, and balance sheets.

Ghālib (smilingly): And still, IR’s PR machine trumpets, “India achieves world-first most powerful hydrogen engine!” — even though the fuel cell wears a sticker that says “Danke, Canada!” Let me hypercorrect my signature couplet,

Ye masā.il-e-tasavvur ye tirā bayān Aaiaar, 

tujhe ham valī samajhte jo na hype-ḳhvār hotā

(masā.il-e-tasavvur: matters of imagination, bāda-ḳhvār: hype-drinker. All these issues of imagination, IR! We would consider you a saint only if you were not drunk on hype).

Shakespeare (flourishing a celestial quill): It does not stop there. IR has announced that Hyperloop will soon connect Chennai to Bengaluru in 25 minutes!. My dear Gaulib, this is the unicorn’s psychedelic cousin—part train, part vacuum cleaner. The IIT-Madras Avishkar team has indeed conjured up a modest test track, charming in its ambition, but more engineering science fair than scalable transit solution. I will also hypercorrect Miranda from The Tempest, “Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here!..O brave new world, That has such projects in ’t!”. So, is it Hī-per-loop or Hai-Hai-per-loop?

Ghālib (raising his glass and sighing): Oh, ShaKHs-e-Peer KHabiis (O, mean old man), brush up your Angrezi (English). Hyperloop is a cousin of hyperbole and so must live up to its name. If these fancy trains be my beloved, then

Ye na thī hamārī qismat ki visāl-e-yār hotā 

agar aur jiite rahte yahī intizār hotā 

(visāl-e-yār: consummation of love with the beloved. It was not in my fate to meet my beloved (the train); had I lived longer, this wait would have still endured)

Hype masquerading as R&D! Hyperloop may yet be viable—It is all well to dream, but dreams must eventually disembark at Platform Pragmatism.

Shakespeare (with a wink): True, Mirza Gilboy, true,. Like I had Macbeth say, "… It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." Like the Lear said to his daughter, “…Nothing will come of nothing.” and yet IR seems determined to prove even less can come from more.

Ghālib: Behtar, mere dost Shakku (Better, my friend Shakespeare). And at that note, let me summarize:

Jab tak dahān-e-zaḳhm na paidā kare koī

mushkil ki tujh se rāh-e-suḳhan vā kare koī

(dahān-e-zaḳhm: mouth of wound, rāh-e-suḳhan vā kare; opening of the path of poetry.  Till one creates the mouth of a wound, the road of speech cannot open. O success, if IR wants to meet you, then they need to be wounded by the arrow of true passion.)

But, IR is more to be pitied than censured,

Ham ko ma.alūm hai jannat kī haqiqat lekin 

dil ke ḳhush rakhne ko Ghālib ye ḳhayāl achchhā hai 

(ma.alūm: aware, Jannat: heaven, paradise, haqiqat: reality, ḳhayāl: thought. Literally, we are aware of the truth of paradise but the thought is good to keep our hearts happy.)

Amen!

Postscript:

Yes, let us applaud the ambition. Let IR experiment boldly—but let us not conflate hopeful 410-metre scaled down prototypes with revolutions. Hydrogen and Hyperloop deserve rigorous review, and partnerships, not sanctification. The media may dance to the tune of press briefings, but IR’s future must be built on steel, not smoke. So until a Hyperloop pod whooshes through Varanasi, or a hydrogen train puffs cleanly through the western ghats without bursting a fuel cell, let us temper our hashtags and hold our horses.

If you, dear reader, spot a newfangled train running solely on hot air, know that it has already reached full throttle—fuelled entirely by emojis, and ethanol-grade enthusiasm in the latest press release. And somewhere in the heavens, Ghalib and Shakespeare raise their teacups, Ghalib lights a celestial hookah, both mutter a couplet, and return to their divine drinks, bemused but unsurprised.

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