Times of India, Jan 14, 2010
The giant red blocks lightly held together by two-inch rubber wheels have always been my favourite toy. Trains fascinated me as a child, and the thrill of taking the little object round and round the toy track gave me such satisfaction as to forget about the world entirely. That was until i saw the real version. Real trains are huge and while approaching you at night in their usual rusty maroon avatars with wide beaming lights, they almost threaten to devour you; it's enough to scare a toy train-clutching toddler. However, that day it wasn't so much the sight of the giant-on-wheels but the humans on the ground that broke my reverie. The train came to a sudden jerky halt. Sleeping beauties and beasties apart, curious passengers went out to figure out why the train had stopped. Rumour had it that there was a dharna by the people of a nearby village who were demanding the extension of the railroad network. And hapless passengers like us bore the brunt of their ire.
A similar event a few days ago brought back this memory. Though their demands were similar, the residents of Tajnagar village did not resort to bandhs or violence. Nor was public property damaged or human life threatened. Rather, the villagers peacefully built a station for themselves, all on their own. A constructive way to channel the anger, one might say. After all, they had been demanding a railway station for nearly two and a half decades now but paucity of funds prevented the authorities from granting their demands. Even after its transformation into a profit-making enterprise, Indian Railways seemed to lack funds for the very purpose of its existence, which is to expand train services. I can say, as an optimist, that the people of India have realised their hidden potential - no, it's not their ability to construct railway stations, but a deeper sense of power. The kind of power that makes people do things they never dreamt of. And it's not like the Railways didn't know about the project - they did, after all, agree to stop trains at stations built by people. This sounds like a perfect public-public partnership; if such a partnership doesn't already exist, it must start soon. Very innovative and profitable it is, and as railway officials themselves find the idea to be financially viable, the sooner we have more such collaborations, the better for all of us.
The giant red blocks lightly held together by two-inch rubber wheels have always been my favourite toy. Trains fascinated me as a child, and the thrill of taking the little object round and round the toy track gave me such satisfaction as to forget about the world entirely. That was until i saw the real version. Real trains are huge and while approaching you at night in their usual rusty maroon avatars with wide beaming lights, they almost threaten to devour you; it's enough to scare a toy train-clutching toddler. However, that day it wasn't so much the sight of the giant-on-wheels but the humans on the ground that broke my reverie. The train came to a sudden jerky halt. Sleeping beauties and beasties apart, curious passengers went out to figure out why the train had stopped. Rumour had it that there was a dharna by the people of a nearby village who were demanding the extension of the railroad network. And hapless passengers like us bore the brunt of their ire.
A similar event a few days ago brought back this memory. Though their demands were similar, the residents of Tajnagar village did not resort to bandhs or violence. Nor was public property damaged or human life threatened. Rather, the villagers peacefully built a station for themselves, all on their own. A constructive way to channel the anger, one might say. After all, they had been demanding a railway station for nearly two and a half decades now but paucity of funds prevented the authorities from granting their demands. Even after its transformation into a profit-making enterprise, Indian Railways seemed to lack funds for the very purpose of its existence, which is to expand train services. I can say, as an optimist, that the people of India have realised their hidden potential - no, it's not their ability to construct railway stations, but a deeper sense of power. The kind of power that makes people do things they never dreamt of. And it's not like the Railways didn't know about the project - they did, after all, agree to stop trains at stations built by people. This sounds like a perfect public-public partnership; if such a partnership doesn't already exist, it must start soon. Very innovative and profitable it is, and as railway officials themselves find the idea to be financially viable, the sooner we have more such collaborations, the better for all of us.
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