Being Indian: the Roads & Rails (Part-III)

Experiencing Amiri in the Garib Rath

As they say "what's in a name"? The no-frills AC train Garib Rath (poor people's chariot) gives you that experience of Amiri (affluence) when you travel in it...

"Someone stole my blanket last night, so I stole someone else's, tit for tat"...so said my co-passenger in while I was travelling in the train Garib Rath recently... I looked at him. No, he didn't look like a thief, he worked for a company as a mid-level executive.. suddenly my attention shifted to the blanket I was given...it perched safely on my seat, folded... looking at its tattered state I was hesitant to use it.. then why would someone steal it, I asked myself..

After pondering over it for a while, arrived at two possible reasons: one, in a no-frills train like Garib Rath, they charge extra for bed rolls, so for the fear that one may be charged fine if s/he lost it, one would be extra careful; two & the most important, the AC is set at such a low temperature that the compartments become icy cold. So despite blankets being dirty & tattered, one would scramble for it at night. This's the state in most of the AC compartments & AC trains in India... does AC facility mean it has to be necessarily freezing cold or should we regulate the temperature so that it's just comfortable? Does it also not mean unnecessary consumption of energy which could be otherwise saved? And can we get a little bit more clean linen & curtains for a change? If you want to charge few extra bucks for the cleaning of the stuff, please do so. Have heard of disposable linen by the Railways, but yet to experience that.

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