Monday, March 17, 2008

Southern charm

This sounds terribly elitist but last night I was in a train, after a long long time. An overnight train.

I boarded the Rockfort express for Trichy from Tambaram station (which is equivalent to hopping in at 'Borivili' I suppose, the train stops just 2 mins). The station was surprisingly clean - the usual stench of you-know-what from the tracks was completely missing.

But the real shocker was that at 11 pm, when I got in, everyone was nicely, quietly and soundly asleep. Now if you have travelled on a train in Delhi-UP side or even Gujarat you'll know how rare this is. Maybe around 1 am... But at 11 there's always plenty of chatter (loudly), folks who want to leave their light on and on Gujarat Mail, the ones who must have their midnight thepla & 'snakes'.

The a/c was also at human, not polar bear levels (a problem I have often faced in Rajdhani!).

Anyhow, I am in Chennai in Tuesday (18th March) and have half a mind to visit Great Lakes Institute of Management. If any reader of this blog studies there and would like to meet up, do drop me a line at rashmi_b at yahoo.com.

17 comments:

  1. Hi Rashmi,
    Great take on the "snake" terminology. I had read about that in one of the books by Pankaj Mishra. Great Lakes, I heard, is going really strong thanks to the efforts of Bala Balachandran.

    Regards,
    Karthik

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rashmi,
    While it is nice that all these Tamil Nadu guys sleep early, the problem is that all of them wake up too early. If you ever travel by TamilNadu express or G.T. express from delhi to Chennai, you will find that all of them wake up by 5:30pm and start their morning walks in the train!!

    Raghuram

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Rashmi, i hate to say this..
    but pple from up north have a feeling that southies are an inferior lot, jus b'cause they are Madrasis. Perhaps due to the stereotype of south indian executives who flocked to mumbai for jobs, and could find them because of their qualifications.
    Somehow the spotlight till about two decades ago, was on the northies.. also, they had more political influence. However, markets have identified the south for what it really is, and for the educated workforce it has. And now, the spotlight is fairly on the south... with the rising influence of DMK and of Bangalore and Hyderabad...

    For God's sake.. i am not trying to start a northie-southie fight....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey would like to get a hands on student review ans of course your take from Great Lakes.
    Heard Prof Balachandran from Kellog has put in great efforts (and lakes) for this B school.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey,
    Since u r in Chennai and plan to visit Great Lakes, u may as well visit us at the Dept of Mgmt Studies, IIT Madras. Ofcourse it doesn't have the 1 yr prog or high profile associations, but if it is possible for you to come here and address us then I could try my level best to open up the official channels to welcome u. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. Am a 1st yr student at the MBA course of the Dept of Management Studies, IIT Madras...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Rashmi,

    well, you said it already that you were travelling on a train after a long long time. Many things have changed, not only in the south, but in Indian Railways on the whole. the trains and the stations (throughout India) have become a lot cleaner, the a/c's do not make that much noise. In the new trains, we do have mobile charger points, absolutely required on long duration trains.

    So, the trains in south must be cleaner/better, but overall things have changed for the better in Indian Railways, under Laloo raj.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @the teacher,
    While Indian railways has improved over the last few years, I remember from my 2002 visit to trichy that some how, stations on that stretch (madhurai to trichy) are somehow more clean than other places.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Im a regular Mumbai-Chennai train traveller..and once that hits AP..the gender challenged problem will make you forget any cleanliness issues!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow! This sounds like a good idea. Am a Great Lakes Alumnus.

    Unfortunately, in Bangalore, and hence wont be able to meet you on your visit!

    Hope you had a nice visit though.

    Let me know your experience.

    Do pay a visit to my blog at http://worldthrumyeyes.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Rashmi,
    It's lovely to travel by train, to begin with, and to find the train clean and quiet... It's like a pure blessing!
    But I think Gujjus and their midnight "snakes" are omnipresent, you must be awfully lucky to have not found one!

    ReplyDelete
  12. As rightly told by Rags, almost all the lights are switched off at 10 PM and are switched on at 5:30 !!!

    One more difference between train in Tamil Nadu and in UP is that here 99% of travellers have tickets :) :) :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hummph. A take on Gujjus by quite a few folks commenting here. All below 25, as I notice from their profiles. You should be worried that ill informed kids are reading your blog.


    http://www.desiprimeminister.com/

    ReplyDelete
  14. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  15. @pradhanmantri: I thnink you are mistaken. My comment was not to offend any particular community. Just highlighting the lighter side of it.

    ReplyDelete
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