Of Diwali ,Air Travel, the unfortunate Train and the neglected roads...
The Diwali this year had to be in the City of Charminar and Pearls – Hyderabad. Since the travel plans were finalized at the last moment, I had to take the aerial route.
I started off for the airport at around 6 AM on Saturday. The city has a completely different look in the morning. No traffic jams, no honking horns and I reached the airport in 25 minutes in spite of the bad roads(yeah those patches of tar between pot-holes).
The first thing that struck me was the massive crowd at the airport. I have been to the Domestic airport in morning hours, but this was completely different. The Terminal 1-B meant for the Private Airlines has been recently renovated and it does have good look to it. Although it could have been done better in terms of logistics and amenities for the travelers, nonetheless a good beginning.
The festival season seemed to be contributing factor towards the vast sea of humanity at the terminal.The airport had activity comparable to a Railway Platform. People were traveling with the entire family.Good for me, I was just carrying a backpack and did not have to stand in the queue for luggage check-in .Got the Boarding Pass and headed for the Security check. Again a big queue, in spite of a separate queue for ladies and kids, it took 20 minutes to make it to the Security check.
With declining airfares the Airline Industry has been able to attract more and more customers. Tickets booked in advance being comparable to AC Train Travel lot of people planned in advance for the Diwali Travel.In fact, I could sense a lot of First time Flyers around.Looks like domestic Air Travel in India has finally come off age, at least in the metros. Hopefully this translates into modernization of airports, more Runways, improved ATC and signaling infrastructure and lesser delays.
The flight was ok, except for an incident where, the passenger behind me was refused tea as they said “We don’t serve tea on this sector”, which obviously did not go well with him. The Flight Supervisor tried some convincing but without any result. Finally she relented saying they would serve tea as it was a special request. To this the passenger next too me promptly asked ‘What if I too request for tea?’ Before tea could be served there was turbulence due to bad weather and the passenger was informed that due to the turbulence, they won’t be serving hot beverages!!! The passenger promptly asked for a complaint book!
Now that was some storm over a cup of tea!!
Reached home and there was the news of a train accident in Andhra Pradesh going on the News Channels. The engine and seven bogies had plunged into the swollen rivulet district in the wee hours of Saturday. The bridge under the tracks had been washed off due the impact of the water. But the driver wasn’t aware of this and made an error of judgment. A tremendous loss of life, which could have been easily avoided. What was painful, was the blame-game that followed - local-authorities and the Railway Administration pointing fingers at each other. With so many accidents happening, we as a nation seemed to be getting used to them and learning very little. Although it’s a question of doing justice to one’s work, the ‘Chalta Hai’ attitude is doing the damage. We seem to have very little value for life and accidents and death tolls/ injuries have become daily statistics.
The there was yet another ‘bright idea’ from one of the News Channel – India’s Worst Roads. Be it Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune or Mumbai, the same story - pathetic conditions of roads, causing delays, wastage of fuel and energy. In fact they reported that a lot of people from Pune were of the opinion that all roads were bad. One of the roads to feature was The Andheri-Kurla road from Chakala, which was my daily route to the Office before the US Trip. The dubious distinction for the worst road went to the Banergatta road in Bangalore. After the rains this year it was the same story across every city – water-logging, traffic jams and patches of road amongst potholes – The Great Indian Urban Challenge !! Let’s hope that with some foresight in the area Urban planning, honest efforts on the part of decision makers and co-operation from the public at large we should have better conditions in the coming years.Maybe we could do our bit, eg. Fill up those feedback forms which MMRDA published in Newspapers, asking for inputs on travel patterns of citizens.
(http://www.mmrdamumbai.org/whats_new.htm)(http://www.transformmumbai.com/yourviews.html)
The Diwali this year had to be in the City of Charminar and Pearls – Hyderabad. Since the travel plans were finalized at the last moment, I had to take the aerial route.
I started off for the airport at around 6 AM on Saturday. The city has a completely different look in the morning. No traffic jams, no honking horns and I reached the airport in 25 minutes in spite of the bad roads(yeah those patches of tar between pot-holes).
The first thing that struck me was the massive crowd at the airport. I have been to the Domestic airport in morning hours, but this was completely different. The Terminal 1-B meant for the Private Airlines has been recently renovated and it does have good look to it. Although it could have been done better in terms of logistics and amenities for the travelers, nonetheless a good beginning.
The festival season seemed to be contributing factor towards the vast sea of humanity at the terminal.The airport had activity comparable to a Railway Platform. People were traveling with the entire family.Good for me, I was just carrying a backpack and did not have to stand in the queue for luggage check-in .Got the Boarding Pass and headed for the Security check. Again a big queue, in spite of a separate queue for ladies and kids, it took 20 minutes to make it to the Security check.
With declining airfares the Airline Industry has been able to attract more and more customers. Tickets booked in advance being comparable to AC Train Travel lot of people planned in advance for the Diwali Travel.In fact, I could sense a lot of First time Flyers around.Looks like domestic Air Travel in India has finally come off age, at least in the metros. Hopefully this translates into modernization of airports, more Runways, improved ATC and signaling infrastructure and lesser delays.
The flight was ok, except for an incident where, the passenger behind me was refused tea as they said “We don’t serve tea on this sector”, which obviously did not go well with him. The Flight Supervisor tried some convincing but without any result. Finally she relented saying they would serve tea as it was a special request. To this the passenger next too me promptly asked ‘What if I too request for tea?’ Before tea could be served there was turbulence due to bad weather and the passenger was informed that due to the turbulence, they won’t be serving hot beverages!!! The passenger promptly asked for a complaint book!
Now that was some storm over a cup of tea!!
Reached home and there was the news of a train accident in Andhra Pradesh going on the News Channels. The engine and seven bogies had plunged into the swollen rivulet district in the wee hours of Saturday. The bridge under the tracks had been washed off due the impact of the water. But the driver wasn’t aware of this and made an error of judgment. A tremendous loss of life, which could have been easily avoided. What was painful, was the blame-game that followed - local-authorities and the Railway Administration pointing fingers at each other. With so many accidents happening, we as a nation seemed to be getting used to them and learning very little. Although it’s a question of doing justice to one’s work, the ‘Chalta Hai’ attitude is doing the damage. We seem to have very little value for life and accidents and death tolls/ injuries have become daily statistics.
The there was yet another ‘bright idea’ from one of the News Channel – India’s Worst Roads. Be it Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune or Mumbai, the same story - pathetic conditions of roads, causing delays, wastage of fuel and energy. In fact they reported that a lot of people from Pune were of the opinion that all roads were bad. One of the roads to feature was The Andheri-Kurla road from Chakala, which was my daily route to the Office before the US Trip. The dubious distinction for the worst road went to the Banergatta road in Bangalore. After the rains this year it was the same story across every city – water-logging, traffic jams and patches of road amongst potholes – The Great Indian Urban Challenge !! Let’s hope that with some foresight in the area Urban planning, honest efforts on the part of decision makers and co-operation from the public at large we should have better conditions in the coming years.Maybe we could do our bit, eg. Fill up those feedback forms which MMRDA published in Newspapers, asking for inputs on travel patterns of citizens.
(http://www.mmrdamumbai.org/whats_new.htm)(http://www.transformmumbai.com/yourviews.html)
As for the Diwali celebrations, it was a quite affair with the family and lots of photos being clicked. The family has moved recently to Hyderabad, so not many neighbors and friends. Did see diyaas and lightings, but the Akash-Kandeels and lighting in almost every house, that was missing. I also missed Diwali at Nagpur - lots of friends, relatives and neighbors. This time around it would have been special in Nagpur. A lot of junta, college seniors/juniors coming back to Diwali on vacation. Would have been a good chance to catch up with a lot of them. It’s been ages since I’ve been there……
