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Almost every alternate day in the last few weeks, the first thing I hear before getting up from my bed is the song from the movie “Shanghai”

Jai bharat mata ki jai
Sone ki chidiya dengue, malaria
Gud bhi hai gobar bhi
Bharat mata ki jai!!

When I heard this song for the first time I could not believe my ears, I had to look for it’s lyric to get the wordings right, and yes, my ears were right!!

Don’t be mistaken that this song is played on some TV channel at my place every day. Rather It’s the alarm alert for one of best buddy who turns out to be a self-served, railway reservation broker every morning! His dedication is just commendable. It’s basically an hour job, where his Sunshine decides his success or failure on a given day.

This morning I was irritated and amused at the same time when he was trying to book a ticket for himself. I was still on my bed and could not stop myself, shouting out the lyric of the song, stressing the “Gobar” more than the “Gud”, when he was repenting on his failure, yet again for not being able to book a confirmed tatkal ticket. His reaction still reverberates in my ears. With partially closed eyes, and frustrated soul the only sentence he uttered- “Ben c**d”,Page cannot be displayed!!  paise bhi kat gaye aur ticket bhi nahin mila”!!

Very often I notice him abusing the system, especially the railway reservation system, and holding India and the Indian government responsible for the plight of the common man.

At any given time, he has around 10 tickets booked in IRCTC and his appetite for booking never ends. For a single journey from his workplace to his home- a mere distance of around 400 kilometers,  he holds these many tickets in the wait listed status, in as many train as possible and finally travels on a  Tatkal ticket.

He is not the only person doing this. Same is the case with majority of people travelling on trains at regular basis. This is just an exploitation of the common man at the hands of the government. I am not an economist neither an MBA guru, but from the Aam aadmi understanding, what I infer is that, it is an effect of the most basic concept of economics-the demand supply theory. The demand is made to look too high, which actually may not be the case. The system basically compels the common man to struggle and fight for it, thereby raising the demand to its zenith.

In a small survey from my friends and acquaintances, I found out some stunning figures. Anyone who travels on regular basis, books at least 2 tickets for a single journey.  And there is never a case where one is unable to travel due to unavailability of tickets. The TT sahib is always there, to do the needful on exchange of a few hundred bucks, depending on the demand- supply curve for a given train.

It’s time to admit our failure and the fact that our entire system has been corrupted. Before the situation turns into an epidemic, the government should come up with plans, to make sure that confirm tickets are available to everyone willing to travel for any route, booked before a certain period- say a fortnight or a month and ensure transparency in the system. Accordingly the train capacity should be made flexible to provide the required service.

We are a nation with abundance manpower, we have one of the biggest railway networks in the world, but that’s not reason enough to flaunt and be complacent. Neither do we have the best train service in the world nor adequate numbers of train as compared to its population. Despite the fact that we produce the best of the management and engineering brains we still long for the appropriate idea which could find a permanent solution to the problem.

Well, it might be a profit endeavor of the government and the railway in particular, but, is this, not the responsibility of the government to make sure that the common man does not suffer?

Until we find solutions for these basic requirements, the Indian image of the golden bird, is going to elude and the diseases like the dengue and malaria are bound to thrive. It’s our choice ultimately weather to keep convincing our self and live on the past glory, or raise our voice against any such prevailing issues in our society affecting the normal lifestyle.