Thought stream September 11, 2007
Posted by abheek in personal.1 comment so far
- Bonnie’s offered to buy me an iPhone for my birthday, but surprisingly, I’m resisting. Lack of Exchange support, especially calendar and contacts synchronization, is almost a deal breaker for me now.
- Hospitals (especially ones in India) make me feel very, very guilty.
- Note to self: donate blood each time I visit India.
- School starts in 6 days. Let the madness begin.
- Looking forward to breaking in my new squash racket on the fancy Stanford courts.
The Pride of Dilli September 10, 2007
Posted by abheek in rants.add a comment
(This was written about a week back in Delhi, but sporadic internet connectivity confined it to my laptop until now).
Much has been written about the new Delhi Metro project. People have raved about how timely the construction project has been, how wonderfully high-tech the coaches are, how effective the air conditioning is, and how efficient the service is.
Bah.
Moving beyond the trite, here’s my list of top-5 reasons why the Metro is the coolest thing Delhi has seen since 1979 (which is basically the limit of my observability).
5. A new scheme of addressing. The first time I heard someone say, “My shop is on pillar 379 on the Dwarka line,” I remember returning a blank look of incomprehension. Turns out, each pillar on the elevated line is numbered, and that’s already a commonly used addressing scheme for people close to the metro line. Very interesting.
4. Capacity. The coaches are designed to have the majority of the people standing. Seating is only a single row along the sides of the coach. More people in the coaches translates to fewer on the road, which is A Good Thing. Combined with the smooth ride and the short length of the average ride, standing room only is not as bad as it might sound. And very, very practical.
3. Contiguous cell phone access. Don’t get me wrong. I despise your compulsive-cell-phone-user-in-public-places as much as the next person. But there is something reassuring about having uninterrupted cell phone service throughout the metro, especially in the underground sections.
2. Safety. Delhi is probably the least safe city for unaccompanied women. For that matter, women in groups aren’t statistically any better off. Traveling alone after dark is anathema to most. Not anymore. You can actually see unacommpanied women traveling on the metro late in the night, which is a sight not often seen in Delhi.
1. And finally, the coolest thing about the Metro. Political Correctness. Where else would you see announcements referring to “Physically Challenged” passengers. Not ‘disabled.’ Not ‘handicapped.’ ‘Physically Challenged.’
As people in California would say… Awesome!
