An Indecisive Indian

  Train 18/Vande Bharat express is constantly in news nowadays, what with the PM, Narendra Modi ji, himself launching every train and the train running over cattle frequently. Thanks to our countrymen, considerable acclaim and indeed some abuse came, and is coming, my way. One of my TEDx talks of September 2019 at Hyderabad went viral ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDLYZ1tm7A&t=24s ) and many of my interviews started doing the rounds again on social media. Facebook posts summarising the story of myself as the leader and the Chennai team as the creator of the train, originally written in Hindi, were shared very widely, including in English and many regional languages. (type ‘ आज से कोई 6 साल पुरानी बात है ’ or ‘ It is some 6 years old thing from today’ (sic) in Facebook search and you can see more than 100 of them with varying levels of readership from a few hundreds to as many as 100 K). I know neither who originated the post nor am I tech-savvy enough to find that o...

  Train 18/Vande Bharat hit buffalos and cows in quick succession and all hell broke loose. There was criticism galore and concern for the train, the passengers and the cattle. Images of the damaged train and carcasses were splashed all over and the social media freaks had a field day speaking for or against the train, with a variety of armchair train couturiers sermonizing me, the creator, on nuances of train design. There were some positive posts too, for sure. Opposition politicians across the board rolled up in glee to castigate the train, which the government had only recently compared with God of trains, the bullet train of Japan.   I was disconcerted by the media blitz on the issue and somewhat nonplussed. As the din receded, I turned to my uncles and Lo! I was stunned and then stupefied by the depth of their enlightening conversation on the issue. It’s hearsay but I reproduce accurately:   Shakespeare: To moo or not to moo, that is the question…   ...

  T he Train 18/Mumbai-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat express was in news again after its grand launch by the PM barely six days ago as it encountered a herd of buffalos on the track and ran them over. The nose cone of the train was damaged and images of the damaged train were splashed all over the social media. Politics also creeped in and some leaders from the opposition parties tweeted shamelessly, and gleefully, as if they were waiting for an unfortunate incident like this to run down the train and therefore the PM.   A bit of a déjà vu and as deplorable as it was so earlier in 2019; the first Train 18 encountered a technical snag while returning from Varanasi after its inaugural trip on 15 th February 2019. Similar negative propaganda ensued from political opponents of the government and even some industrials, notably the chief of a pharmaceutical major from Bangalore, joined the bandwagon of these cynically-antagonist traducers in decrying Integral Coach Factory (ICF), t...