This morning on my way to a friend’s place, I decided to take the metro for the first time on my visit to India this time around. I would be travelling to the newly added stations in that route stretching all the way to Garia in Kolkata. I reached the metro station with relative ease even though there was the morning rush hour to contend with. Getting into the train was a nightmare and the bus journey to the station itself started to seem like a breeze. Barely managing to step into the train, I was swept into the interiors of the compartment without making any voluntary effort to do so. More and more people seemed to step into the already jam packed train. While the crowd in train eased off by the time we reached Esplanade, I was left wondering about the new name of the Garia station. I then remembered that it was the last station on this line but I just couldn’t be sure. The map drawn on the wall of the train compartment wasn’t any help either because the stations were called either Kavi Nazrul station, Geetanjali or something similar. Infact, there were two additional stations drawn on the map with no names on it. Brilliant, I thought!! Now I didn’t even know whether this station with the weird name was the last one or not.
It just amazes me why someone would name a station with names of prominent people instead of the roads on which they are located. What sense does it make? All it does is makes life hell for people who aren’t aware of these stations or as in my case is traversing that route for the first time. A status update on facebook didn’t seem to be enough to vent my anger and frustration and hence this post!
Sitting in the train compartment, I began to think, what is it that politicians in our country really do. Are they really here to serve the people or are we the ones submitting to their whims and fancies at every possible instance? Whether it is Ms. Mamta banerjee’s countless “micheels” (rallies) or demonstrations or a visit from our honorable President herself, the people to be disturbed and put into a great deal of hassle are the people trying to get to work and/or trying to mind their own business. It would be a crime to have any of these distinguished people wait a traffic signal like the rest of the country but it’s perfectly ok to have traffic blocked for miles at a stretch so that they can breeze past without pausing for an instant. They can call as many “bandhs” as they wish only to satisfy their bloated egos but not give a damn about the daily laborer not receiving his wages. “Its all for the greater good”, they say. For once, I would like to ask, what good has a bandh ever done except earning a day off for the IT folks at sector V, that too by the way, something that would be made up for by working on a Saturday?
I started reading a book called “Ignited Minds” by APJ Abdul Kalam. He writes in the book that every young person in this country needs a role model. In our formative years, this role model usually takes the form of one’s parents and teachers. They are then taken over by other prominent figures of society in fields like sports, industry, education, and politics etc, people who have made a name for themselves in their respective fields and have the potential to inspire the younger generation. After living in this country for the last 27 revolutions around the sun as APJ Kalam would put it, I have come to realize that no matter who happens to become my role model, it sure as hell wont be a politician!!! The only thing that comes to mind was a joke I had once read on the internet – Politics : Poly – many, Tics – blood sucking parasites.
Take care folks and I definitely feel better now! 
Want to know what I feel? I have hopped on the Kolkata Metro plenty of times to get to work and it was always crazy as it would take me so long just to get the station by bus but once I was there, the entire ride to my destination was about 15 minutes! So I don’t know whether to be happy about the brisk train ride to my destination or complain about the horrendous 30-40 minute tin bus ride just to get to the crowded train station and then be hustled into the train involuntarily! I always hoped that they would extend the new routes to cover Saltlake and other northern areas of Kolkata but they seemed to have furthered them all the way south to Garia so I am already unhappy about the new routes not helping me much in my commute, thank God it’s not a daily one anymore so the weird names of the stations named after the politicians aka “many blood sucking parasities” who work to make our lives a wee bit more difficult than it already is, doesn’t surprise me at all! What is surprising though is that they already have names of the stations up on the map inside the Metro which do not exist as of yet and confuses the commuter even more that he already is as he clearly cannot see where he is underground and moreover the names are not of the roads where the station is located! How wonderfully thoughtful!
Tintin, the new routes are going to extend all the way to salt lake as well. There is construction going on all over salt lake and its a complete mess. But then again, if we want good, effective routes, we have to bear the pain now and we cant complain. What irritates me is the naming conventions. The traffic situation is getting worse everyday and only an effective metro can fix that situation. Lets hope they get that done soon and they do a better job than they did with the Delhi metro.