Ghālib & Shakespeare on airlines and railways: Booze in Vents, Chargeable Baggage and Fists in Pantry
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, railway stations may
look like fish markets with passengers dragging suitcases onto electronic
scales, paying fines for “excess emotional attachment” to household items they
insist on carrying.
And
in the latest innovation in Railway
Seva, a passenger who complained about overpriced food was
educated in customer relations
by three catering staff with their fists. The video has gone viral—turning
“Inflated Price of Water Bottle” into a mixed martial arts event on passenger-bashing on wheels.
Amidst
this comic opera of ducts, duffels, and duels, who better to unravel the
absurdity than our resident sages of satire—Ghālib and Shakespeare. And how do I know
what they said? Simple. I hacked into their celestial adda through a satellite
link—NASA thought it was space debris, but it was actually the frequency of
wit. What follows is a transcript faithfully reproduced from the heavens, where
Ghālib and the Bard were sipping their ethereal poisons and chuckling at earthly
chaos.
Ghālib: Aadaab, Billee Barad (Greetings, Billy the bard), Arrey, there is this God-forsaken land
called Bihar, where a poor soul cannot even sip his poison because of that
pestilence called Prohibition.
Now tell me—what if some enterprising Samaritans thought of hiding the elixir of life in the
train’s AC ducts? It was, after all, an act of pure public service. Why complain? Let me quote this
gem, which alas, I did not write but could have easily claimed:
Zāhid sharāb piine de trainoñ meñ baiTh kar
yā vo
jagah batā de jahāñ par ḳhudā na ho
(Zāhid: Priest, hermit. Oh priest, if you forbid me to drink in the mosque, then show me a place where God is not!)
And truly, if these IR
buffoons only allowed passengers to drink openly make their their journey ‘spiritual’, no one would
ever grumble about cooling or heating again—the only complaint would be when
the bottles ran dry!
Kal ke liye kar aaj na ḳhissat sharāb meñ
ye sū-e-zan hai sāqi-e-kausar ke baab meñ
(ḳhissat: stinginess, sū-e-zan: unfounded suspicion or doubt, sāqi-e-kausar:
cupbearer of Kausar, baab: gate, regard, respect. Not to serve wine today, out of fear that there might be
none tomorrow, is to distrust the generosity of the Cupbearer of Kausar)
Shakespeare: Absolutely dear Gawleeb,
I would gladly counsel these IR and Bihari killjoys with the super villain Iago’s
wisdom from Othello,
“Come,
come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.
Exclaim no more against it...”.
By the way, had it
leaked from the duct, the passengers might have
warmed their souls and cooled their tempers, with no need
to any IR’s certified nincompoops around!
And
now, talking about this Spice Jet story, what bravery! What valour!. Antony
from Julius Caeser would have endorsed, “What, four men downed by
one soldier? ...Cry havoc, and let slip the
bags of war!...”,
only
here, sir, the dogs of war were unleashed over hand baggage. A most weighty matter,
indeed, clearly reflecting that your country’s defences are in safe powerful
hands.
Ghālib: Yes, biraadar Shekhu (brother Shakespeare), Indian army men are made of stern stuff believing that:
Ragoñ meñ dauḌte phirne ke ham nahīñ qaa.il
Spice jet ke jab.Doñ se na
Tapkā to lahū kyā hai
(ragoñ: veins, qaa.il: supportive, lahū: blood, jab.Doñ: jaws. Who cares for blood politely flowing in veins? It is no blood unless it oozes from the jaws of SpiceJet dodos!).
And
now, this luggage circus of IR! Let me remind you of a verse, often misattributed
to me by many worthies, such as Modi and Tharoor, though not mine, for I never
stooped to such simplistic clarity:
Umr bhar wo chughd ye bhuul
kartā rahā
dhuul chehre pe thi aur
aa.ina saaf karta raha
(chughd: a kind of owl, stupid, aa.ina: mirror. This owl-brained fellow kept
scrubbing the mirror, while the dirt sat stubbornly on his own face!)
Such
is IR—finances spiralling down like a fallen kite in a dust storm, yet instead
of fixing the string, they invent red herrings the size of a whale. They trick
passengers into blaming fellow passengers for their woes, when in truth the
real overweight baggage is IR’s own policies pressing on their chest like a fat
uncle on a rickety hammock.
Shakespeare: Aye, my dervish friend, “...Uneasy
lies the head that wears a crown”, lamented Henry IV the king in my
eponymous play but it’s passe now. Mark me well—uneasier still lies the back
that must drag its suitcase to a railway weighing scale! If wisdom be justice,
then let IR weigh its babus first—their baggage is heavier than any plus size Samsonite.
And look ye! When a poor soul dares complain on IR’s grandly named portal, Railmadad, it unleashes pantry staff like a pack of
apron-clad hitmen upon them. It’s time the portal is renamed Railmadness.
To
parody Aaron from the play Titus Andronicus, “Villain, I have done thy
mother.”, here it should read: “Villain traveller, my food was
overpriced, yet thy face was underpriced for their blows!”
Ghālib: Pyare Shakhs-e-Peer (Dear
Shakespeare), you nailed it. The poor passenger only complained of pain in the
pocket but IR, in an improvisation on your Bassanio’s one arrow after another
trickery, has eliminated that pain by a more acute pain; the passengers would
now complain of pain in the ribs!
Dard se mere hai tujh ko be-qarārī haa.e haa.e
kyā huī zālim tirī ġhaflat-shi.ārī haa.e haa.e
(be-qarārī: disquietude, ġhaflat-shi.ārī: indifference. You
don't wish to see me endure pain, and you are becoming restless. I would prefer
those days when you were so cruel as to be totally indifferent to my dying
pain)
I
switched off the satellite feed just as Shakespeare tried weighing Hamlet’s
skull on a railway scale and Ghālib was insisting that AC ducts should be
filled, not with moonshine, but with a decent Scotch or at least Old Tom whiskey and some rose
water to boot. The Bard countered, demanding casks of sack—the golden sherry he
praised in Falstaff’s
words. Soon the two were bargaining: whisky for winter trains, sack for
summer flights.
And there they were—one swirling his whisky glass, the other sniffing his canary wine—laughing so hard that even heaven’s angels filed a complaint about excess baggage of noise. Down here, we’re left with our tickets, tantrums, and tea in shoddy plastic cups. Up there, they’ve clearly found better spirits.
...
Well explained! Experienced San Diego trade show booth builders know how to combine creativity with functionality for the best results.Trade show exhibit and booth builder company
ReplyDelete🙏
DeleteThanks & Good Evening Sir
ReplyDelete😊
DeleteNice
ReplyDeleteThanks
DeleteWow what a poetic commentary on the wayward ways of our IR. Enjoyed thorough.
ReplyDeleteThanks sir 🙏
Delete😊
ReplyDeleteNicely explained sir! A whimsical journey where Ghalib and Shakespeare turn travel chaos into lyrical amusement. Truly a warm and soothing read.
ReplyDeleteThanks partner
DeleteThe first cause for cheer is to be reassured that our nation is in safe hands. Next, it may be the turn of Railway staff to face this Lt. Col with his excess baggage (though I doubt he will be a match for the crowd of Railway staff who will "settle" the matter.
ReplyDeleteAs for the new initiative of weighing the luggage, now for sure, passengers muss report three hours before departure time, get their luggage weighed. and a weight stamp affixed. Is there any proposal for TTEs to carry a weighing scale (like our gas delivery boys are supposed to) and do a "spot checking" of the luggage? Luckily, the luggage limits are generous enough so that unless you are a pahalwan, you cannot travel with 50 Kg of luggage (but then, to recall an earlier post, what are the porters there for?)
As for IRCTC, I must say their service is excellent. Last week I travelled by Mysore Express 9a day train) from Chennai to Bangalore, and there was not a five minute gap where one could relax and have a snooze without some vendor or other calling out "tea/coffee", cutlets", "omelette bread butter", "samosa", "soft drinks" and "water" in that inimitable style of Railway IRCTC vendors. (By the way, I did not find them overpriced, except for lunch dinner packets which one should avoid anyway).
Thanks for an animated response sir
Delete