Runaway Train

Prologue

I decided to add this prologue after the first few comments to this post. This post uses an incident in India, but is actually universal in nature and focuses on the moral, philosophical, and ethical decision-making involved in an emergency.

Main Post

Imagine you’re traveling from Mumbai to Pune by train, which is full to capacity, as usual in India. An additional engine is added to the train to climb the ascent of the Western Ghats from Karjat at sea-level to Lonavala at a height of 2000 ft. above sea level. Your train trudges laboriously upwards and reaches Lonavala after 1.5 - 2 hours. You enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Sahyadri ghats. It stops at Lonavala for a while and everyone gets back on board, ready to proceed.

Suddenly the train starts inching backwards. There are smiles, giggles, and wisecracks about what antics the drivers are up to. Some wonder if they’re simply changing tracks or if some engine replacement or something had to be done. The ‘inching’ turns into ‘crawling’, and soon enough, ominously, the train is now really ‘moving’ backwards. There is puzzlement all around and you are amused as to what’s happening.

There is no let up however, as the train starts getting momentum, accelerates further, and starts gaining speed. Amusement disappears as you and everyone else realize that something is seriously wrong. The train gains further acceleration and you’re already cruising at a reasonable speed. Everyone is peering out the compartment doors and windows only to find people from other compartments doing the same. “Has the driver lost his mind?” you wonder, as people start voicing obscenities at the train staff.

“But, was the staff (driver and guard at opposite ends), on the train when it started off at Lonavala?” someone asks and nobody really knows. The worst possibility comes to your mind - you’re on a runaway train, downhill, with no one at the controls.

By this time, the train is so fast that it would be dangerous to jump off. Panic and confusion all around you. You calm yourself and start thinking rapidly. You visualize the laborious twists and turns of the track as it winds down the mountains. You imagine a full-speed, no holds barred, runaway train hurtling across those tracks and overturning into the picturesque Sahyadri valleys. Is this how you were destined to die?

Point A: Question 1

At this point, if you jumped off, you assess your chances. Let’s say there’s a 70-80% probability that you’ll get seriously hurt, and a 20-30% possibility that you might die in the process. Will you jump off?

Point A: Question 2

Assume you don’t, and cling on to hope, that there will be some miraculous intervention and that you will be saved. After all, when one lives in a civilized and moderately developed society, it is a rational expectation that there will be systems and processes in place to deal with such emergencies.

Some people are seriously doubtful however. They’re contemplating jumping off. Will you discourage and/or prevent people from doing so?

Meanwhile, the train has reached a breakneck speed. The sparks from the wheels are now of alarming proportions and reaching the windows. People from another compartment come rushing into yours as their compartment catches fire. The ghat section, where the real twists and turns begin, is just around the corner. People are screaming, women are crying in hysteria.

Point B: Question 1

At this point, there’s an almost 100% probability of serious injury, including permanent handicap, and a 70% probability of death. Will you jump?

Point B: Question 2

Assume you don’t, and still have hope that you will be saved. However, there are people who are getting ready to jump. Will you discourage/prevent them, just because you have hope even if they haven’t?

Epilogue

The above situation is not hypothetical. This is what happened to the Indrayani Express in the 1990s, when my cousin brother was on the train. During a normal return journey from Pune to Mumbai (downhill), the train used to descend the height of the ghat section in approximately an hour. That day, it ran the same track downhill in 11 minutes. The train did not overturn. Few people who jumped off were seriously injured. There were no major casualties. My brother urged dozens of people not to jump and ended up saving them in the process.

(Photo Credits: the Indian Railways Fan Club)
(Title of Post: Runaway Train by Soul Asylum)

Pune’s E-Governance Initiatives

Is Pune living up to its claim of being the “IT hub of Maharashtra”? At least some initiatives point in that direction.

Better Roads in Monsoon

Pune is notorious for its bad roads, and the monsoon season is pure nightmare. Both the PMC and the IT geeks-based “Better Roads Group” have teamed up to make this monsoon a different story:

For this, the PMC ensured that roads were repaired before the rain and even set up a monsoon helpline for citizens to register their complaints about potholes, waterlogging and choked drains. The PMC also gave the cellphone numbers of all 14 ward officers so that complaints could be sent through SMS.

To give this idea a big push, the civic body has roped in a group of young technocrats working for Better Roads Group, to monitor the operations of the helpline. The group will initiate immediate action on the complaints received through SMS.

Appaled by the condition of roads last year, the group decided to do something concrete, said Amit Kadam, who works for Persistent Technologies. The group had also filed a public interest litigation last year in the Bombay High Court on the bad condition of the city’s roads.

To register a pothole / manhole / water logging problem: Call Monsoon Helpline at 2444 5555.

Civic Complaints via SMS

Citizens will now be able to register their civic-related complaints just by sending SMSes to their local ward officer, ward medical officer, medical inspector, deputy city engineers or junior engineers.

Complaints pertaining to problems like irregular water supply, breach in pipelines, potholes, broken footpaths, uneven lids on manholes, garbage clearance, illegal hawkers, cleanliness of public areas and street lights can be made by citizens.

You can view the mobile phone numbers of the ward officers at PMC’s E-Governance Website.

Complaints Website

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has also tied up with the Citizen Empowerment Forum to register their complaint through the Internet.

The system would enable the citizens to file their complaint online and the complainant can check the status of the complaint on the net.

Visit Citizen Empowerment Forum’s site to lodge complaints.

Well, so many initiatives - it remains to be seen how effective they really turn out to be. But at least, it’s a start!

How to pay homage to Chhatrapati Shivaji?

Unlike the moronic ways I’ve written about many times earlier, this group of people show us the real way.

“For two months they stayed away from home, quit jobs and risked their lives and limbs climbing to dizzying heights and faced nature’s challenges. For, propelling these 20 youth, was their devotion to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Their mission: To photograph and document over 200 of his forts in the State.” For what, you ask?

The Goal

The Largest Web Based Digital Interactive Encyclopedia
on the life and times of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj

• 20,000 plus pages of historical information
• 1,85,000 plus photographs of 280 forts & places
• Satellite coordinated GPS monitored maps of all forts
• Interactive visual tours of forts
• Pictorial biography of Maharaj with 100 exclusive stories 2,500 colour paintings on his life & times
• The site will cover a span of 127 years of Maratha History

The Team

• 128 professionals from different faculties

Limca Records

• Biggest website ever developed on an individual
• Biggest trekking expedition ever organised

Visit their site for updates on their impressive progress so far.

Nice travelogs with pictures

If you liked reading my Spiti Travelogue, I must refer you to Priyank’s site.

Priyank did a mountain biking trek in the Himalayas, and his pictures are awesome. Check his Niagara pictures too!

Updated navigation for travelogue

I was a novice blogger when I started out posting my Spiti travelogue. Thanks to feedback and comments, I’ve realized that it was very difficult to actually navigate through the travelogue. It even led to some folks thinking that the “Introduction” post was the whole travelogue itself!

They have only me to blame. I apologize. Now, I’ve added a nice index to the introduction and added navigation links to help
reading…

Thanks for the patience and bearing with me. Also, note that comments are enabled only for the first and last posts.

One way ticket

I remember learning swimming when I was a child. After a few days of paddling and prancing in the water, I began to leave the side of the pool for a few brief seconds and come back again. Longer periods of side-holding-abstinence followed, but still for short periods of time. The side on the other end of the pool seemed too far away to risk it.

Eventually, an experienced adult swimmer took me to the middle of the pool, and simply released me. I almost drowned, but fought against the water furiously, struggling to stay afloat, and at the same time, trying my best to reach the side of the pool again.

Conclusion: I could have learnt swimming on my own, if I had the courage to reach across for the other side.

As Homo Sapiens, we evolved on the ground. We feel safe when we’re on the ground. Our language reflects it - groundwork, “swept the ground from under my feet”, “ground reality”. Soldiers “hold their ground” against an enemy. A defendant “holds his ground” in the trial. “Grounds for action”, “Grounds for suspicion”, and so on. (By the way, ever wonder how that which refers to the round Earth which goes round itself is “g-round”?)

Air-sickness, sea-sickness, fear of heights, fear of flying, etc. are all reiterations of this plain, simple, fundamental truth.

Only exceptional humans have the sagacity to embark on voyages when the “other side” is not just invisible, but unknown. Columbus is one of the most famous of such explorers, who sailed for India, and discovered the US.

But when and who will have the courage to embark on the first inter-planetary mission from Earth to Mars? Especially when one of the first lunar explorers says it will be a one-way ticket?

“Buzz Aldrin stressed that planetary exploration will only begin when mankind reconciles itself to the prospect that explorers may not return to Earth.”

What a frightening thought! Just like reaching that other side of the pool.

Yearning for Sense…

Once an issue becomes a mainstream news item in India, you can be sure every major religious group, political party, student organization, and celebrity will have an opinion on it. After the Shiv Sena, it’s now the All India Minorities Front’s (AIMF) turn to freely express their views on Orkut while living in democratic India.

What are odds that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) will not be the next to express their views from Gujarat?

How does one issue become mainstream? Well, one of the TV channels has to take the bait, and the rest will follow. The print and electronic media will then aggressively offer the right platform for everyone to get their views miscommunicated, taken out of context, and misquoted. Competing with a dozen other news channels and newspapers, the one creating the most sensationalism and misunderstanding will win the most eyeballs, goes the wisdom. There will be talk shows with pundits, and opinion polls, and public talks shows.

In all this brouhaha, two things happen. Not only is the true issue misrepresented to various extents and typically blown out of proportion, but other significant newsworthy items are all but ignored.

How many of you recollect tomorrow’s British PM-to-be, Gordon Brown’s high profile visit to India? No? Not surprising, because the Indian media never knew of anything else happening in the world apart from Big Sister Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother!

Not only is this phenomenon unique of India. For e.g., in the US, the retirement of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman was relegated to the background over more important stuff like celebrities being jailed for drunk driving.

While US Cable TV was obsessed with drunk-driver-celebrities (DDC, a long wanted title):
“President Bush skipped the final session of the G8 Summit, Vice President Dick Cheney needed to have his heart pacemaker replaced, and NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis prepared for launch!”

In India, it’s Cricket Coach Controversy, Big Sister abused on Big Brother, the AAA (Abhi-Aish-Amitabh) wedding, Big Uncle kissing Big Sister, so on and so forth. Too much coverage, too many opinions, too many mountains out of molehills. When this happens - and its happening with increasing frequency - I need a break. To regain my sense, rejuvenate my capacity to reason, to make this world meaningful again.

Then I listen to Kumar’s Nirguni Bhajans (or read this review) , or Mozart’s 40th in G Minor. Watch Ek Doctor Ki Maut, (or read this review by my friend, Asuph), or dream of taking a yacht cruise like Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead. What can you do? Escape to the Himalayas by reading my Spiti Travelogue! Just kidding…though I do that too, sometimes!

Red Light in Amsterdam

No, not that red light!

I was in Amsterdam last year, and one of the things I was most impressed by was that all the streets had separate lanes for bicyclists!

The Dutch love bicycling, and the city shows it. All the roads not only have pedestrian paths on both sides, but also bicycle tracks. Not just that, the bicyclists have their own traffic lights too!

They look quite cute, don’t they? (See the Green version on my Flickr collection - at the right). And, though they may be Red at times, they’re always environmentally Green!

Himalaya: Personal Stories of Grandeur, Challenge, and Hope

“To see the greatness of a mountain, one must keep one’s distance. To understand its form, one must move around it. To experience the moods, one must see it at sunrise and sunset, at noon and at midnight, in sun and in rain, in snow and in storm, in summer and in winter and in all other seasons. He who can see the mountain like this comes near to the life of the mountain, a life that is as intense and varied as that of a human being.“

Words from Lama Govinda, a 20th century holy man, quoted by Richard Blum, one of the three editors of National Geographic’s book, “Himalaya: Personal Stories of Grandeur, Challenge, and Hope“.

Some say the book is worth buying for the photographs alone (more than a 100 from some of the most accomplished photographers in the world). But the 40 short essays accompanying them are what gives this book its real meaning.

Forbes says:

“What the collection of writings in Himalaya does is take those experiences among the tallest mountains of the world and bring them back to where they most touch people that spend time in the Himalaya, which is in your heart.”

“Conrad Anker, one of the world’s most talented climbers, writes in his Himalaya essay, the mountains he had gone out to first ascend in Nepal and Tibet, had faded into the shadows next to the people that lived there. “The mountains have taught me humility, but the people who live in the shadows of these mountains have taught me acceptance, respect and kindness.“

The words of the world’s foremost wildlife biologist, George Schaller, in a voice light on science and strong on feeling: “Standing at this convergence of snow and sky, I lift my face and feel afloat like a passing cloud. Spirits soar in such infinite space, one feels euphoric in the cold clarity of the peaks, and the silence speaks to the soul.“

Himalaya approaches this from so many different directions, from the Tibetan monks who live in the high monasteries, to Jimmy Carter on a trek, to climbers scaling the heights. Yet a consistent theme runs through each essay, and if we approach this book as we approach the Himalayas, looking for it to give us something, ultimately we come away with a greater sense of self and what we too could achieve.”

Some more information on the book, with a full list of contributors, is here. You can get it from Amazon or directly from National Geographic.

Sounds like a great addition to my library…

Spiti Travelogue updated with more pictures

I received offline as well as online feedback to update my Spiti Travelogue with more pictures. I was humbled, and have updated the travelogue posts with a large number of additional pictures…take a look!

All your comments, criticisms, and suggestions are most welcome!