Had Enough of Monorail, Now Suck on Some Light Rail

Three years ago, people in Trivandrum (and Calicut) were thrown a bone by the Chief Dream Merchant (CdM), which we all lapped up (see Monorail for Tvm, 2011). The Railway God had appeared to him (maybe in his dream – him being the dream merchant – or maybe in person; nobody knows) and said a monorail is what these people need.

Lo and behold, there were colorful images of monorails in all newspapers warming the cockles and other unmentionable parts of Trivandrumites. We were glad that the Lord upgraded us from MEMU trains and buses to this modern contraption. Soon, the coffers of DMRC, the temple trust looking after the Lord’s interests, began filling up with consultancy offerings. DPRs (not related to DPR Korea) were prepared, alignments were marked, and historical buildings were threatened – all in paper. People were given controlled doses of euphoria-generating news featuring unauthorized copies of monorail pictures from the web, which kept them baying for more.

But this God is a playful one. He likes to toy with his devotees. And so it came to pass after three years – no, not the monorail, but the reappearance of the Lord. He suddenly revealed himself again, appearing through the monorail woodwork, to the CdM, and said, “#$%! monorail. I’ll upgrade them to a light metro rail, whatever that is”. The CdM said, “Thy wish is my command. I’ll immediately convey it to the suckers. They’ll be grateful to you for not smiting them”. Both of them sneaked a peek at the consultancy coffer and laughed maniacally (ref: Consultancy fees to DMRC).

The people were happy that their prayers and offerings have “paid off”, just like with the other gods. In the meantime, unbeknownst to man, the Lord has different plans, which he revealed to the CdM (and to me). Three years from now he plans to upgrade the plan to a full-fledged metro. And in 2020, it’ll be upgraded to a subterranean maglev bullet train, and in 2023 he will smite us all because a few of us will sin by not going orgasmic about the newest plan. The Lord moves in mysterious tracks! So, beware! You might get run over!

 

 

G’bye Annus Stupidus, Allo Annus Ridiculus

It’s festive season again. The air is filled with the pungent smell of burning rubber, plastic and waste.   People are singing paeans to the new messiah - “His Royal Highness, Benevolent, Right Reverend Excellent Chief Minister and Royal Disburser of Alms to the Poor, the Crippled, the Lame and the Blind, and the Royal Shower-er of Riches on Rich People”.

People on the streets are also singing paeans to the Royal Opposition for royally protesting the disbursing and showering while wearing crowns and holding sceptres, symbols which they despise.

People are singing paeans to their MP tha Roor for clearing the environment regarding the deepwater port (the thought behind it is what matters; i.e. the afterthought, after an airport gets all the clearances in the blink of an eye).

They are also singing paeans to the Mayor-ess for triggering a renewed interest in physics, especially the study of inertia.

People are so much into singing paeans, they don’t realize the pains in their nether regions caused by the actions (no, I don’t want to spell it out) of the above royalty.

2013 has been an “annus stupidus” by any standards, but as G. Carlin says, “Inside every silver lining there is a dark cloud”.

And that dark cloud is the New and Improved Kerala Model of Development (NIKMOD), pioneered by the new messiah who is travelling at warp speed to far away destinations. The people are yet to catch up with him. Well, how can they? They are singing paeans (with their heads up their *****)!  

NIKMOD envisions airports at every nook and corner of the State, like bus stands. And this would usher in all-round development. New roads will be built, shopping malls and high-rise condominiums will come up, and international schools will sprout. It would also bring in high-end hospitals with magic ventilators that create illusions of life in the dead to console the relatives and relieve them of the corrupting influence of money.  (I didn’t make this up. This is something I read in the Inter-webby about the benefits of Aranmula airport, though, I admit, he didn’t specify the ventilator part).

And the good tidings don’t end there. We will have bullet trains, monorails, ports, seaplanes, regular planes, convention centres, 5-star hotels, and not to forget helipads at places where we can’t build airports (no $hit!). Ooh! I can’t wait for 2014 –which I hope would be an annus ridiculus- to roll in.

A Happy New Year to Y’all!

P.S. A few days ago, the statue of a former CM was unveiled in Trivandrum. At the time, the government said it will allot land to a foundation in his name. Voila! 48 hours later, the foundation has 37 cents of land in Palayam. This land, mind you, is not in Palayam, Calicut, but in Palayam, Trivandrum - a city with no land for any development, if you believe the current “His Royal Highness, Benevolent, Right Reverend Excellent Chief Minister and Royal Disburser of Alms to the Poor, the Crippled, the Lame and the Blind, and the Royal Shower-er of Riches on Rich People”.  And that too for a man whose loyalties lay elsewhere and who had no love lost for Trivandrum as such.

Back in GOC!

It’s been almost a month since I landed back in GOC capital, and I don’t even know where to start ranting.

First up is the garbage issue. We’ll soon be celebrating the 2^nd anniversary of our hard-fought “freedom to throw garbage anywhere” rights. I am sure our Mayor-ess Moonlight will come up with some novel ideas for celebrating this in style, given her stellar (lunar?) track record.  And hopefully, the state government would chip in with its own stuff, given its deep, anal-expulsive love for the city. Can’t wait for the s#&t to hit the fan. Oh, wait! It has already hit the fan.

Today, Mr. O “Quicksilver” Chandy opened an office for building monorails in Trivandrum and Calicut, which some people say could be run using solar power. Anyway, this man is awesome. One day he is in some Middle Eastern country receiving some major award specially created for him, the next day he is in some other Middle Eastern country with some major “businessmen”.  And then he is in Delhi meeting with the High Command before going back to his ancestral land for some good, clean adulation involving elephants and stuff, and before you could say Jack Robinson or Jose Thettayil, he parachutes into Kawdiar to open an office. You are almost tempted to think that he is somehow deriving all his energy from the “Sun”.  Meanwhile, his office staff members were also making hay while the “Sun” shines. Good for them!

I’m pretty much certain that he parachuted in because there is no road connectivity between Trivandrum and the most important city near it – Kollam. This, unlike what you think, is part of a grand scheme of building waterways connecting major urban centers. In the 1^st phase they have converted a 2-km stretch of the highway, from the IT-hub Kazhakootam to Kaniyapuram, into a waterway. The only problem was, as usual, the authorities didn’t notify the people. Nor did they offer any ferry service. So, people like me, who would have otherwise hired a boat, had to drive on the narrow, muddy banks of this canal jostling for space with other vehicles of the non-seaplane variety. It took me two hours. Next time I’m taking my inflatable dinghy.   

By the way, how did the Brits come up with the Quilon spelling?

1^st Brit: Hey, where are you stationed?

2^nd Brit: Kollam

(Mind you, this is all happening in Morse Code – K is Dah-di-dah; Q is Dah-dah-di-dah. Maybe one guy just wanted to say Po-Dah)

1^st Brit: How do you spell it?

2^nd Brit: QUILON. And you?

1^st Brit: I’m in Koilandi, spelt QUILANDY

1^st and 2^nd Brit: Ha, ha, ha. Aren’t we brilliant?

 

Trivandrum Monorail – “To be or not to be a Paara”

When god speaketh, man shuts the f$@k up-eth. That is the norm. But unbeknownst to god, there are a set of people called rationalists who ask for logical, plausible explanations. These people raise uncomfortable questions, which usually bring any discussion to an abrupt end with, “that is our belief, you can’t question that.”

Recently, railway god E. Sreedharan spake and spake and spake a lot to his devotee chief minister. And then he spake and spake some more.  And everybody bowed and prayed. He spake about the wisdom of building a monorail for a growing city like my hometown. And, everybody nodded in agreement, “sorry lord, we forgot your advice on widening the roads in Trivandrum and using the existing railway tracks and buses. A thousand apologies.”

The railway god apparently had no recollection of ever saying such things. Do gods get dementia? He now wants to build something bigger and better than a monorail. A metro, perhaps, as the city is growing. On the other hand, I guess Calicut only needs a monorail as it won’t grow. What about the other two cities “larger” than Trivandrum? Malappuram, if you believe the stats, is the Shenzhen of India – growing from a hundred thousand to a million and a half in a few years. At this rate, it could be a megalopolis pretty soon. Obviously, the people there deserve a modern “maglev”. We are yet to hear god’s thoughts on that.

This god-speak, however, raised alarms. And surprise of surprise, a dissenting voice came from the devotee group itself. Mr. M. A. Vahid, a ruling party MLA, boldly came out as an atheist and suggested, without naming names, that somebody is trying to torpedo the project. There were some mute denials from the government. And I patted my back for predicting this – see Did you just Wink?.  

To be or not to be a paara, that is the question on the railway god’s mind now (paara, പാര is a Malayalam word used to describe someone who slyly tries to #$ck up something). He definitely seems to have an axe to grind as far as Trivandrum is concerned. I could never understand the deification of this guy (or anyone for that matter). He didn’t invent or create anything from scratch. He used existing technologies and equipment to build something for which a blueprint has been in existence for 150 years. The world’s first frikkin' metro started running in London in 1863, for (railway) god's sake! The Delhi metro is reasonably good and he should be complemented for good administration and execution of a project. An Indian world-class, if you may, like the Trivandrum “world-class” International Airport or the CWG village, (see Our Standards) which are a big improvement on existing facilities. That’s about it.

In the meantime, the stink continues in Trivandrum, with our Mayor-ess Ms. Moonlight and our MP Mr. Moon Tha Roor throwing muck at each other. Interesting times ahead.

Gateways, Monorail, Tender, Amakudari

Over the past few years, there was one thing that struck me while going around Trivandrum. Our obsession with gateways, and I have been trying to guess the reason for this obsession.

I remember my mom’s ancestral house in rural Trivandrum which had a small gateway –the kottiyambalam- built onto the compound wall. Nothing fancy - just a simple door with a wooden bolt opening out to a small ledge with places to sit on both sides, and steps leading down outside to the pathway and the railway track about 50 feet away. As kids, we cousins used to sit there and wave at passing trains and then as teenagers we sat there and smoked and drank. Sadly, the kottiyambalam is just a memory now. In its place, rather near where it stood, stands a regular iron gate stuck in a concrete wall (which replaced the mud kayyala). The kottiyambalam as such is experiencing a revival in Kerala with rich blokes incorporating it in their designer homes. But, I am not talking about those gateways.

I am talking about the gateways that are there or are being built at the entrances of government buildings such as hospitals or this or that directorate. There is one being built in front of the Corporation Office, two in the General Hospital and one at the entrance to the Eye Hospital. Then there are the existing ones like the one at the Medical College entrance, the DME office, the Science and Technology Museum. There is one thing common to all these. These are all equally ugly, serve no purpose and are a colossal waste of money.  Well, at least that was my initial reaction. Then on deeper analysis I regretted doubting our government. Guess what? The government has a vast checklist of priority stuff, which it goes through before making any such spending decisions. It roughly looks like the following:

       Item         Status

          Poverty                  Alleviated

          Roads                    Built

          Schools                 Constructed (some even have pools during monsoon)

          Water                    Supplied

          Garbage                Removed

          Healthcare            Universal (the general wards in the aforementioned General
                                        Hospital even have some broken toilets!)

          Criminal gangs      Wiped out

          Crime                    Unheard of (ever since said gangs were wiped out)

          Corruption             Being institutionalized (oops!)

And the list goes on and on.

The government honchos poured over this checklist and saw that everything was good. “OK guys, now since everything seems to be taken care of let’s use the spare money to build some gateways. Y’know, concrete, fake traditional stuff and use colours that are in vogue now among mallus –pink, parrot green,” they decreed and lo, we have gateways.

P.S. The monorail saga continues – Recently the railway god paid a visit to the Calicut monorail site and gave his approval. He said it was viable in Kozhikode and probably agreed with the government proposal for a global tender. It warmed the cockles of my heart and made it tender. He is ready to give approval to any two-bit town that needs a monorail as long as there is a global tender. I am not saying that Calicut is a two-bit town. It’s every bit an 8084, 8-bit town like the other two “huge” cities in Kerala.  I’m digressing. The point is about the global tender. Here was a man who just a few weeks ago bullied and blackmailed the government against a global tender for a metro. He said the metro would get JICA funding only if it went through him. Nobody asked anything. The media, the politicians, the academicians, no one. Zip, nada. Why was that? What if, say, Hitachi had won the bid? Would JICA have refused? I don’t think so. Still, there is an explanation for his actions.

Japan, despite the overall good image, is not that transparent in many of its dealings. It is not corrupt in the way we experience it here. A common man need not bribe a government official to get a certificate or some such thing in 99.9% of the cases. Corruption there is more at the higher end, institutionalized and subtle. Companies and government are all in it together. Bids are rigged. Everything is shared. Everyone is happy. Worked for quite a long time too, but has run into trouble with globalization. There is a practice called Amakudari in Japan where senior bureaucrats join private companies after retirement. Gratitude for favours received. This is the word that popped up in my mind when I read his threat on not receiving funding from JICA. Here is a powerful retired guy in a private position and the Japanese could relate to that.

And, for him, he got what he wanted for his former company and didn’t care one way or the other about global tenders for other stuff. Stuff he is not interested in. The worrying factor for me here is the total lack of spine from anyone in questioning some of the things he said including the double standards in global tender. He is definitely a rare specimen in our country (people like him are dime-a-dozen in any reasonably well-run democratic country including Japan), did some great things and deserves the accolades, but that doesn’t mean everything he says is sacrosanct. His comments (or at least stuff that the media have attributed to him) related to the maglev and high-speed trains are ridiculous to say the least. He is for building the high-speed rail and said that Japan will give its 700-series shinkansen to Kerala. Of course they’ll give it. And you’ll pay for it with the money they lend you so that their corporations stay afloat while you drown in debt for eternity. All for the benefit of a few rich people who may or may not travel in such trains.  Incidentally, Japan built its first bullet train line between Tokyo and Osaka, which are Intel Core i7, 64-bit cities unlike our 8-bit ones. Ideally, the left should have questioned this absurd idea, but they don’t want to be seen as anti-development, it seems. They appear to have lost their you-know-what somewhere and they are not even aware of it.        

Our Standards, Western Standards, PODs for Trivandrum, etc.

When you travel abroad and get to actually see how other countries (not necessarily first world countries) address issues related to urban infrastructure, garbage or mass transit, you may be tempted to think, “Hey, if these schmucks can do it, definitely we too can.”

Well, I have to cut you off from that reverie right there. You can’t, even if someone bribes you with a billion dollars. There have been times when I was also lulled into believing it is possible after seeing newspaper headlines like “Kerala to be garbage-free”. I remember one such announcement 4-5 years ago by the then LDF minister, which had all the required jargons – ban plastic, intensify this, enforce that, follow-up there, suck up here, etc. Recently, this government also launched (is it re-launched) a new, fresh drive. I hope to see the next LDF government to re-re-launch the drive in another 4 years.

There is a reason I think this, and many other things, will not work here in Kerala or India. And that reason was elucidated by one man some time ago. His name is Lalit Bhanot. Now, here is a dishonest man who gave a brutally honest opinion. His response to a pile of doo-doo on a shower floor in CWG village was, “Everyone has different standards about cleanliness. The Westerners have different standards, we have different standards.” I immediately liked this guy. We, as a people, have this extraordinary tunnel vision to see only the good parts. We have Photoshop built inside our eyes to brush away the piles of filth around our glitzy apartments and malls. We have nostrils that are immune to stink. We find it difficult to throw a piece of paper from an ATM into the trash can provided (explains why we are not good at basketball). We work in the IT field, live in swanky apartments, wear jeans and t-shirts, and have nice cars which we use to drive down to the nearby Akkulam lake and dump our $**t into the lake (personally saw it; didn’t have the time to get down and kick the $**t out of her). The politicos and other worthies who lead the annual cursory cleaning efforts pile up everything and burn them in front of TV cameras, leaving behind half-burnt piles of plastic, Styrofoam and carcinogenic fumes that the TV cameras don’t see, while creating a space where people come and dispose off more of their filth.

I was involved in a clean-up operation with our residents association. My idea was for a group of us to go around and sweep up the garbage and get the corporation to take it away. The first part was vetoed immediately. “No, no, we’ll just get a few migrant laborers and they will do it.” Don’t want to get our hands dirty; don’t mind making our land dirty –seems to be our motto. It took a few days for the guys to cover the entire area and in between I fell sick. Well, the streets were clean (though it didn’t stay like that for long) when I came out next but I was shocked to learn that the garbage was not taken away by the corporation. Instead, they paid some guys to take it away, who probably dumped it in the highway somewhere. If there were some soft object nearby, I would have banged my head against it (no point in hurting my head). That’s when Mr. Bhanot’s view really sunk in and I realized the futility of trying to explain why moving a pile of crap from here to there IS NOT cleaning.

So, if any of you guys have grand dreams, just forget it. Sit back, enjoy the ride up $**t creek, accept our inner scumbags and stop blaming our politicians and officials. Remember, they are also us. FIFO – Filth In, Filth Out. 

P.S. Monorail, maglev saga continues. The latest idea is Pods for Trivandrum. I didn’t even bother to read the report fully. Our CM would have loved it, as it will give him another opportunity to save millions of rupees for the people of Trivandrum. Y’know, we already have pods. A few people get in, give the destination and the pod takes you there and you pay the fare. It is called a frikkin auto-rickshaw. Some tweaking is necessary with the rates and the software installed in the morons who drive it, but otherwise it is perfect.

The guys who dream up these things have peapod-sized brains filled with slush and two brain molecules - one to control their mouth and another to control their anal sphincter. And they disgorge the same stuff through both holes.



Maglev, Trivandrum Monorail, Railway God and Confucius

A picture is worth a thousand words (in some versions it is 10,000 words). This saying, I found out after painstaking research that involved googling it, was an American creation slyly attributed to Confucius to make it sound convincing. I was reminded of this quote when I saw some impressive pictures of cities in Kerala. Stunning high-rises, coconut trees and shimmering backwaters! The only problem is that these pictures are worth only about 250 words (or 2,500, whichever you prefer), or only about a quarter of what Confucius meant. None of these pictures show the streets, the grounds, the earth on which these buildings stand, for obvious reasons. It is not a pretty sight. But, I assume that is what tourism hyperbole is all about. Confucius, if he comes back now, would be shocked to learn that fishing nets from his country are being used to catch foreign tourists in a distant land.

Recently I read a comment (about Gurgaon) that you have to keep your eyesight angled up by about 40 degrees and you may be tempted to believe that you’re in some 1^st world city. A similar comment was made by a Japanese guy to me many moons ago.  He said that Trivandrum looked better than Hawaii from the air. But then there was a pause, and in typical Japanese fashion, a lot was left unsaid. An American would have probably said, “yea, we got down and that was when the $hit hit the ceiling literally.” You can’t walk 10 metres or take in a panoramic view without being jarred by piles of garbage, ugly buildings, and eye-piercing colours. When did purple and parrot green become our state colours? I missed that revolution. There was a time, in my youth, when we used to (ignorantly) call any colour that is not white or its derivatives as “pandi colour”, a derogatory reference to the colourful Tamil scene. I don’t feel that way now as far as Tamils are concerned, because now I realize that such colours suit them, and their personae. Likewise, their rhythm, the beats, and the sound. Those look and sound fabulous in Tamil, but don’t work in Malayalam. Still, Tamil being the bigger cultural entity around seems to have had a bigger, detrimental impact on Kerala in the last decade than I had imagined.  (And, if I ever get my hands on the Asian Paints guys, I’ll kick them till they turn purple.)

Well, I lost track. I wanted to write about garbage-free Kerala. But then, it is a futile exercise. There was a garbage-free Kerala plan initiated by the previous government 4-5 years ago, which was thrown into the trash can after the first few days. The new plan is also destined to take the same route by the look of things, with a slight detour where a CIAL-like entity will make some money in the process.

Couple of follow-up news regarding Trivandrum monorail and railways.

Our CM has become such a visionary he has become almost Palin-esque (Sarah Palin – An US politician who said she could see Russia from Alaska) in his vision thingy. He could, sitting in his perch in the Cliff House, see all the way to Kaliyikkavila in the south and all the way up to Thalapadi in the north, to which he plans to extend the Trivandrum monorail. He is not even winking any more.

While the CM was at it and thinking up ways to carve up the state booty among corporate sleazebags as quickly as possible, the railway god revealed his plans for using maglev at Kochi. The news report quoted him as saying this technology is widely used in Japan. Now, that was taking it a bit too far even for a god, especially, in this information age. The only maglev system commercially operating in Japan is a contraption they developed for the Nagoya Expo, which they are continuing to use over an 8-kilometre stretch at great loss. The only other and oft-quoted example is the one in Shanghai that connects the city to the airport. Again, not a metro system. He said the maglev can run at speeds above 500 km/h. Now, how that is beneficial in a metro system with stops every kilometre is beyond my comprehension. But it is god’s words and you have to take it as it is.

Today you see the news that the Japanese maglev will be used for the high speed railway system in Kerala. Again, the system this guy is talking about is not operational on a commercial basis. The Japanese do have a test line in Yamanashi and have touched speeds well in excess of 500 km/h, but the way he talks about it is similar to the earlier-mentioned saying attributed to Confucius by the American. Enhances the credibility. He and the media, however, seem to be ignorant of this big world-wide internet webby thing. Interesting days ahead.

Monorail? Trivandrum? Did you just wink, Mr. CM?

“Throw them a bone, willya? Let them chew on it for a while”. This was the thought that passed through my mind when I saw the news of “monorail” for Trivandrum. It was a continuation of the institutionalized neglect of this place that has been the norm for quite some time now, regardless of the political hue of the ruling setup. Perhaps they felt a little pity after some newspapers highlighted the pittance allotted to God’s Own Capital by MANI (or da man who controls the ‘munee).

There are quite a few outsiders who consider “Pappanavan’s folks as scoundrels”. There is no point in fighting such prejudices. I personally feel that the percentage of douchebags here is more or less the same as in any other place. In fact, the majority appear to be rather naïve, considering the way they trust the government and their drivel.

Regarding this monorail melodrama - if you go back in time, E Sreedharan, “the man who invented rail travel”, and his company did a study and found that the city didn’t need a metro (didn’t “deserve” a metro). It was all the city’s fault. It had to go and settle itself into undulating terrains, with curves and hills and holes and what not, which didn't meet the specifications of his invention. How can a city like that even think of mass transit? He said "No", and everyone agreed. He decreed, “Let them have a MEMU,” and that became a meme with the government and the people. And that was it, even though the existing railway track mostly skirts the city and traverses a mere 2 or 3 kilometres of the populated areas.

In the meantime, we had a few MPs, with no connection whatsoever to the city, foisted on us by the two political groups, the latest being the glam-boy who was going to wave his magic wand and make Trivandrum a global city. We all fell hook, line and sinker for him. From the look of it, by the time he is through we will become objects of global ridicule. The guy bats for Kochi, bowls for Gujaratis and "feels" for Kashmiris, but is a spectator when it comes to Trivandrum. Till a few months ago the ruling left front was the problem. Now, he has his buddies in power. So, ideally things should get better, move faster, etc. Maybe it did.  He probably nudged the CM, after the meaty portions were passed around to everybody else, and said “Throw them a bone, willya? Let those bozos chew on it for a while”.

* Personally, I am not a big fan of monorail. The pillars and the elevated tracks will be one big eyesore defacing the city. Especially in places like ours, those pillars and the space beneath will end up being used for sticking posters as well as for peeing, pooping, puking and fornicating.