Cattle Class

Economy class, (also called coach class, standard class, or cattle class), is the lowest class of seating in air travel and rail travel.

The term is slang, much like the word slumdog. Enough said.

More on NEFT

Further to my earlier post on ICICI Bank's NEFT charges, I've started using cheques to transfer my money to my other accounts. It isn't as big a hassle as it seems as long as you don't need the money transferred immediately. Even with NEFT it takes a couple of days anyway. Once the moolah is in an account which does not levy NEFT charges, I'm home free!

Train spotting

Almost fell off my chair laughing when I read the news... Saving money may be an eyewash, but it never occurred to me that it may actually get our "leaders" to experience what life is like for the rest of us.

I remember there were so many cases of stoning local trains in Mumbai and elsewhere, in which people were hurt. Nothing really seemed to have happened then - just a big news story and customary noises by the guv'mint.

What I would really like to see next is a "leader" waiting with me for more than an hour to cross a street because some other "leader" is in town and has decided to travel down the same road. Yes, true story.

Let's ban the beast!

Read news reports on the move to ban all VoIP communication in India. The reasons being put forward are security-related.

Not being an expert in this field, I would like to know whether it is possible at all without banning the Net itself. My meagre knowledge indicates that VoIP is nothing magical; just data transmission with some QoS, no? How would one go about distinguishing normal data traffic and voice?

The Great Shutdown

The big city was offline for two days. As I travelled back from office in the middle of the day, my thoughts went back to another similar incident. Different city, different people involved, different time of the day - but the result was the same. Nothing to eat.

That's right, for single men (or men forced into singleness when the wife is out of town) food becomes an issue whenever something like this happens. Everything just shuts down. The speed at which it happens is amazing; by the time I reached home all shutters were down and the good folks of the locality were already igniting the tyre-heaps. Fortunately, this time around I had a semi-stocked refrigerator at home so it wasn't really all that desperate a situation. But that other day, so many years ago, there was nothing. We lived on a day-to-day basis as far as food was concerned. And with the saints prowling in the area, it wasn't safe to leave the house. Nor would it have helped because all the joints were closed.

Let's face it: as far as we know it was an accident. Regrettable loss of life, grief and mourning for some, or many. But regardless of how many felt unhappy, I don't know what purpose is solved by burning tyres on the roadside and forcing people to shut shop.

Even more shocking were the suicides. The shutdown may have served some political purpose of which we are unaware, but how does ending one's own life help? A one off case may be explained away, but dozens?

We live in a strange world.