दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

We were 29 tourists in the bus. We travelled across the enchanting Tamil Nadu from Chennai right up to Kanniyakumari and back. We moved together, visited the places of interest, be it temples or market, dined and stayed together in Tamil Nadu Tourism Hotels for ten nights.

A poorly-paid but very co-operative guide Chnadrasekaran accompanied us and was always ready to help for everything we wanted. He arranged all temple visits that are really messy with greedy priests. Some thought Chandrasekaran operates though some who pay some commission. Similar was the views whenever he took us to some shops at Madurai, Kancheepuram, or Chennai. Madurai is his home town. His working wife and younger daughter came to meet him. The young girl wishes to be an engineer. Her elder sister is also in engineering college.

The oldest man in the group was an 87 years army man, widower for last 32 years but very fit and fast. He was always the first in everything. The youngest was Dr. E Mittal at 39 who accompanied her parents. UKMittal, an engineer from Roorkee had passed out in 1960, one year ahead of me but still is at 66, and after serving whole life in SAIL still works with Jindal’s steel company. GK Pandey was another person who drew my attention. Pandey is a senior officer in defence. He is knowledgeable and a booklover. An undersecretary was also part of the group whose wife hardly joins his frequent outings. And how can we forget three extra exuberant sisters in the group who were accompanied by the husband of one sister who was a PH.D in history and a teacher in a Faridabad school? Husband was connected to the hospitality sector and is now consultant.

The group truly represented the aspiring Indian middle class. They have all worked hard in life or are still working. They have attained whatever they wanted. They provided good education to their children and have got them settled. They have built houses and created some wealth that can sustain them in their retirement. They are financially sound to live well. They don’t look towards their children for supporting them. Some of them such as Dixits and Chaudhrys are have their children abroad and they go and live with them quite frequently. But the best was the story that Gaur told me. Gaur retired as electrical foreman from IIT, New Delhi. His son who is now in USA had married an American girl. It reminded me of Anand. Every member of the group has a unique story of his own. It all excited me.

Here is a new India.

We undertook its ‘10-days rail-cum-road tour’ starting November 21, 2009 from New Delhi and returning here on December 4. Most of the co-passengers were from and around Delhi. With some improvements, the tour could have been a memorable one for the rest of the life. Here are some suggestions. I wish Tamil Tourism takes it positively and seriously and implement it.

Facilities of Internet: Though some Tamil Tourism Hotels such as one at Mamallapuram or Thanjavur were having Internet facilities, on enquiry it was found as not working. In this era and when some or the other member of every family of the tour group remain on-line, the Internet is essential to keep in touch and for sharing ideas and experiences. Why can’t a developed state such Tamil Nadu and its tourism department provide this essential communication facility for social networking in its hotels? It can always outsource the facility to a private party if it can’t maintain it on its own.

Franchise restaurants: Some Tamil Nadu Hotel doesn’t have restaurants of its own. The worst experience was that at Tiruchirapalli. Tamil Nadu Tourism must have approved franchised restaurants or hotels on the way that must provide clean safe food for breakfast, lunch and tea and ensure to maintain clean toilets and washrooms for gents and ladies. It must cater at least snacks such as dosa, idli, upma, aloo paratha, and sandwitches of good quality at all time. How hotels worth any name can’t provide sandwiches in any place that the guide took us in the tour? Tamil Nadu Tourism must plan and specify the name of these hotels or restaurants in the tour plan provided. It should never leave it to sweet will of the guide who can be unscrupulous to dictate and decide the restaurant.

Alternatively, the Tamil Tourism must provide packed breakfast and lunch instead of using roadside hotels that may cause food poisoning as it happened with me. And Tamil Nadu government must create restrooms on the routes of its tour plans.

Language Training: Tamil Tourism must initiate a language training programme for all its employees as well as those working in restaurants. They must be conversant with both English and Hindi. It will go a long way in improving the national integrity. But the main intention is to make the client tourists feel at home and convenience. In some places, it was really difficult to carry on. One feels miserable in his own country. Even the accompanying guide must be trained one with good knowledge of the places and its history.

Transportation: Tamil Nadu Tourism would have used its own Volvo coaches for the tour. For a journey above 3-4 hours at stretches the commonly used buses tire the passengers badly. Naturally, it’s more so for elderly persons, particularly when the tour is of more that 3-4 days period. 10 days period was too long. It was highly undesirable for Tamil Tourism to use a private company bus that had not paid its taxes and that caused the passengers to get stranded for hours. Tamil Nadu Tourism would have checked all its documents well in time. Further, we had to change to Volvo coach while going from Kanchipuram to Tirupathi, as the bus had not paid Andhra Pradesh tax.

Tour Design: This tour must have an additional rest day at Kodaikanal dropping Tirchy all together. Sightseeing such as Bryant’s Park and the poorly maintained Lake was unnecessary and waste of time. Even Tirupathi could have been made optional.

Finally, I wish Tamil Tourism would have arranged an evening with typical cultural programme with South Indian dance and music to make the tour enchanting in real sense.

है अग्नितीर्थ सागर में
यह सोच था मन हरसाया
दर्शन की आश लिए फिर
मैं जर्जर तन से आया.

यह एक अरब का भारत
अपने पापों से
तेरे जल को
काला कर देता
और पापमुक्ति की शक्ति
पर प्रश्नचिन्ह उठ जाता

फिर तट पर खड़े अकेला
एक स्वप्नलोक पा जाता
वह रूप तुम्हारा मनहर
अनंत लोक तक फैला
मन को पुलकित कर जाता

मेरी आँखों के आगे
फिर दृश्य बहूत से आते
गर रामायण सच है
फिर राम यहीं थे आये
और आकर मिले बिभीषण

हे अग्नितीर्थ,
उस दिन से कितने अरबों
को तुमने
पापों से मुक्त किया फिर
तेरे तट को कलुषित कर
क्यों लोग चले हैं जाते.
तेरे जल में डुबकी को
था मेरा मन घबराया
पर आँख बंद कर हमने
फिर पॉँच बार कर डाला.

I do very well realize that many will not like or agree with my viewpoints related to my Tirupathi visit. However, I am 100% convinced that no religion or trust has any right to create a situation that becomes traumatic to person/s visiting a religious place with total faith and dedication in deity to get some solace. No religious ritual necessity allows any authority to create a situation when a person may feel suffocated in a waiting queue and still can’t come out. I was week, sick and felt like leaving the place and come out but there was no way out and no one from the authority to help there. Trauma of Thirumala darshan is a typical Indian case of mismanagement, even though it is a government managed temple with a senior IAS heading it.

Marketing of its power to fulfill the wishes has been excellent and the temple is known world over for its wealth and its gold. Donations of celebrities and rich men keep on hitting the headlines of media. Its annual Hundi collection must be the highest that makes it the richest temple in India.

Right on the first day, the guide of Tamil Nadu Tourism collected Rs 200 more per person from this group of Delhi. According to him, the Devasthanam has increased its entrance fee from Rs 100 to Rs 300 after we booked, and it’s for a special darshan avoiding the crowd that comes in for free.

The whole temple appears to be permanently barricaded. All the railings and enclosures for the visitors are now of well finished brass material. Anyone can see the way gold has been used or misused (as the quality of workmanship is hardly of a good standard) to make it cover it. I wonder the whole attention of the authority is on making more money from the visitors. For example, Yamuna wanted 6 extra ladoos. I had to pay Rs 450.

One can hardly appreciate the architecture and sculptures in the temple with these barricades covering the main areas for crowd management. One can hardly pray, confess, bow or see or touch even the door step of the sanctum sanctorum.

Most of the great Indian temples are under-designed to handle such a huge crowd that visits these days. Perhaps India over years have mastering the science of under-designing its facilities, be it its new multi lane highways or flyovers, railways stations or ports.

Fear of terrorists has been the reason for banning photography that makes every tourist morose. I don’t know how golden temple of Amritsar manages it and why can’t others follow it. Perhaps the Hindu shrines don’t get the right support from the community as Sikh shrines do.

Can the authority of the Thirumala shrine allow or invite some real reputed crowd management consultants to study and come out with the solution?

Right investment in some facilities with modern technology (against gold covering) in and around the temple, such as sky walks, may make the visitors enjoy the beauty and grandeur of the shrine and the visit more memorable.

Can some students of IIMs and IITs or any other institutes instead of joining political parties, be it BJP, Congress or any other, take up the study of stupendous crowd management problems at many shrines that we visited in Tamil Nadu trip? If Thirumala was the worst, Rameshwaram, and Meenakshi also need a close look.

All these Indian heritages require better attention and upkeepment. At least Thirumala shrine has so much money and cash that it can be developed on the basis and concept of swarga (Heaven).

Is someone listening? Will the Hindus priests and pandas or the politicians with eyes on the riches of the shrines allow anything better to come? And how many Hindus will go against them or support the move?

Let me tell them that the conditions at Thirumala will only make the younger Hindus that are creating the new image of India keep them distancing from the religion and these shrines.

I know the trauma of a visitor at Thirumala will continue. I shall not like to hear any news of any serious stampede and casualties at Thirumala.

My trauma at Thirumala reached its peak with the loss of my camera that had all what I collected for my acquaintances. It happened while transferring from the Andhra Pradesh state bus to Volvo coach of Tamil Nadu Tourism. It was entirely my fault. I wish Balaji can get my camera back, and I promise I shall return again to Thirupati.

In a letter to my sons with a copy of my blog entry under the heading- October 31, 1984, I had requested them to write what they remember of the day. The day was mentally torturous for the family. Here is one from Rakesh, the eldest from Danville,

I was in Narendrapur when Indira Gandhi was slain by her own bodyguards.

It was a time of utter grief and despair for a nation that had prided itself as having the Mahatma as its Father – a beacon of non-violence the world over. The irony is written all over – the Iron lady of India had Gandhi in her name too.

News were hard to come by on that day – and whatever was coming out was spotty and full of dark, sometime gory details.. This bit was clearn – Several among us.. Hindus.. had turned murderers en-masse. We had turned againt our own kind – our brothers.. and sisters – The Sikhs – at the instigation of a small, well coordinated minority of thugs and killers.. politically or otherwise motivated. Sikhs – who had through some of the toughest and brutal test of history – stood up with valor and courage to defend the pride and the Motherland of India.

Indira was no more.. India..as I knew it was to be no more..

Young, impressionable, passionate.. mercurial.. we held debates.. our college – RK Mission, Narendrapur – was closed. We had a fast and prayer session. Then.. the memory gets spottier … One memory is clear – Rajeev Ranjan galvanized us all – in 11th grade – to fast, as a mark of PROTEST.. Thinking about it .. it was most DETEST and repungance at the actions of these so-called ‘Hindu majority’ for turning against their own.. subjecting even the children and women to indignities that I heard second and third hand. It was a day of national shame, if not national calamity..

May the brave lady .. despite her blemishes .. rest in peace.. may we NEVER rest until we have wiped out the seeds of discord that made us stoop to such depths of inhumanity on that day.

Rakesh Sharma

A recent news report in Business Standard conveyed the same message that I had been trying to propagate: “Master technology first; be a manager later“. All freshers joining Infosys will have to compulsorily stay focused on technology for the first six years of their career. Only after the period, they will have to choose to either grow vertically as a techie or take up managerial responsibilities.

I strongly believe that those selecting engineering as their profession must focus on mastering the technology and do everything to learn as much as possible to enhance the domain knowledge backed up with practical training in the industries of the relevant technologies.

I think one of the main reasons for this thrust is the gradual shift of the IT companies of the country in higher level of outsourcing works that that it aims at now. Major automobile companies have already established their shops and many have their R&D centres too. Even new customers, including automakers Renault, Volkswagen and Harley Davidson, are seeking to outsource their complex design engineering projects to India.

The engineering services outsourcing (ESO) industry in the country is set to achieve $55 billion in revenues by 2020. Indian companies are becoming outsourced providers of critical R&D in sophisticated areas such as semiconductor design, aerospace, automotive, network equipment and medical devices.

As reported, Both the Palm Pre smart phone and the Amazon Kindle, two of the hottest consumer electronics devices on the market, have key components designed in India. Intel designed its six-core Xeon processor in India .

Many startups are also focusing on innovations with huge demand in developed market too.

Under these circumstances, the quality of education as well as skill expectations mainly related to domain knowledge from the candidates will have to be higher. Degrees will be worth nothing, if the knowledge is missing.