Magadh Express Cancelled

I guess a reality check was due at sometime. Three days of meetings in the corridors of power in Delhi. Three days of seeing the very best India had to offer. Three days of wonderful and insigthful encounters and drives through the most tree-lined and well-maintained neighbourhoods in the country. And then it ends with this: At 8:00 pm at the New Delhi Railway station, around a thousand passengers are told that the Magadh Express to Bihar has been cancelled.

The station-master gives no reason and tells me that this is India, so tough luck! The Delhi to Bihar sector is one of the most used ones in the Indian Railways but a train can be cancelled for no apparent reason. "Tell the Angrez that this happens here," said a man in the station-master's office who probably sees this kind of drama regularly.

Sarkari Bhavan

It's 4 pm on an absolutely gorgeous spring day in New Delhi. The setting is the reception of a sarkari bhavan or government house.  People wait for a special pass to enter the building that houses a high-profile ministry. Security is super tight and the trigger-happy CPRF is manning the building.

Some people walk in and bump others off the queue. The receptionist gives the aggresive queue-bumpers a dirty look but is forced to issue them a pass. In the same office, an irate Punjabi woman tries to convince a clerk that there is no such thing as a ration card in Australia.

We get our elusive passes to enter the building and then the CPRF stops us and tells us that we can't take our cameras inside. Back to the reception: The lady asks for someone to come down with a letter authorising us to enter with the cameras. Of course that person doesn't turn up.

As we wait outside, the firm but polite CPRF officer starts getting uneasy and criticises the ministry's clerks. Finally the minister's media officer comes in her not-so-VIP car and talks to the officer, who says he can't let us in: Rules are Rules! We reach a compromise and are let in on the condition that the gun-totting CRPF man following us into the building is sent back with the letter.

Inside the building, there is an army of clerks (probably all getting overpaid thanks to the 6th Pay Commission). We enter an office of a bureaucrat, well lit, insulated and full of lovely art work. The official is oblivious to the world surrounding him. A "peon" with the traditional hat dating back from colonial times brings him evening tea.

Minutes later, we meet the minister, who gives us a good interview with all sorts of talks on reforms. I guess it's a lot easier to reform from the outside in. Mera Bharat Mahan!