..

Let me be stern this time

let me be wild

my screams are not going to be heard

my tears are going to dry

they loathe me

they mistrust me

but I have faith..their fears are going to die

the road is tough

and I have had enough

there is going to be bliss

there is going to be shine

But before that,

let me be stern

let me be wild

to allay their fears

and bring peace to my mind

A realisation

Since I have been travelling a great deal in different modes of transport in the last 3 years I have an observation to make, “the pace of a country’s growth can be judged by the pace of its public transport”. I was sure that this is true in India. However I wanted to check for other countries as well.

I myself have been spending 2-2.5 hrs daily on commuting since the last 3 years. That makes up to roughly 34 days in a year. Shit! I have been wasting more than a month each year on commuting. And if I assume that on an average I have been spending Rs. 3000 each month on commuting then I end up spending 36000 each year and a total of 1,08,000 in 3 years. Wow! This means that I was spending more than a month’s salary each year on commuting. I am sure you must be shocked at this statistic. I could have spent that time doing something creative and that money if invested in the market would have yielded good returns, considering the gains which could have been made by recovery in the market after recession. And if I assume conservatively that 25% people in India travel to work/college/school daily then that comes out to an average of Rs. 10¹³ spent each year. This is 18% of our GDP!

This is the story in most of the developing countries in the world. Developed countries have been smart enough to realise this economic wastage and have taken sufficient measures to reduce this loss to the economy. In USA people have the flexibility to work from home, the traffic is well managed and the public transport scenario is much better than in developing countries like India.

“Seven per cent of commuters globally spend 10 per cent or more of their salary on commuting.”

“In the UAE only nine per cent of commuters travel to work more than 90 minutes every day.”

Average travel time to work in different countries:

USA 24.4 minutes

EU average: 38 minutes

Italy: 23 minutes
Spain: 33 minutes
France: 36 minutes
Netherlands: 43 minutes
Germany: 44 minutes
UK: 45 minutes

“26% of commuters in India still travel for over 90 minutes every day.”

The facts above may not be very accurate but they at least present a picture that represents a stark difference between developing and developed nations. Basic modes of public transport in India are buses, auto rickshaws, taxi and metro rail. With infrastructural changes like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Delhi metro, etc the government is trying to reduce the wastage of economic resources, which includes resource time wasted on roads, wastage of fuel, polluting of the environment and a lot more. Needless to say, with the corporate culture growing rapidly in India, initiatives like work from home would go a long way in helping the situation. Quicker modes of public transport and addressing the problems of traffic congestion would also help in reducing wastage of national resources.

 

Tough times don’t last, tough people do !!

 

Ok.. so let me first go back 3 months in my past and have a look at what I had in mind then. Oh God those were some crazy times, even the thought of them is scary! Anyway so I was going through rough times in my personal life as well then. And not to forget the knee that refuses to heal even after 2 years of that horrible accident. Below is the list that I had prepared to give myself some motivation as to what all things awaited once I was through with the 1st sem.

It feels so nice to go through this list and say "check" to (almost!) all of them!!yayy!!

Have a look!

Get my knee fixed	I am soon going to visit the doctor again, my fingers are crossed.
Start writing again	I did !
Explore the malls of Gurgaon	I did !
Go on a long vacation	I did ! twice !
Look good for my sister's marriage	O yes! I looked good indeed !
Shop shop and shop	I did ! I did ! I did !
Drive drive and drive	I drive like a pro now !
Learn a new language,i.e., German	L I didn’t
Watch all the movies that I've missed in these 3 months	I did !
Make sense out of life	It makes much more sense now. Thank God..

Moral of the story (?!?): Read the topic !

 

Something will turn up

As goes the famous saying that when God closes one door he opens several others. And as Charlie Harper says in ‘2 n a half men’, “something will turn up” and his belief in this is so strong that things do fall in place for him in the end. I am a firm believer in God, I take his name all the time in my heart, though showing overt love for him by going to the temple and praying is a concept that I don’t believe in. But yes, it has always happened that whenever I am stuck and don’t have any clue of what to do, I turn to this power to get me out of it. I tell Him plain and simple that look only you know what is going to happen next and I am helpless now so help me and lead me to a way that sorts out everything, and everything works out after that. This may sound unrealistic and you might stop reading further but believe me this has always worked for me. Something always turns up and it always makes you happy, the end is worth the wait. It is just about being patient and having faith in Him.
And He has such powers that even if you don’t believe in Him he would force you one day to turn to Him, either to thank Him or curse Him or beg Him. His powers pull you towards Him. I can narrate incidents from my life where I have felt that His powers in one way or the other but that would make this sound even more like a story and hence I leave this here and leave it to you to introspect further. And I am sure even you can think of at least some incidents when you had lost all hope and then surprisingly something had turned up to fix everything.