satire: Old (stale) rice in new train

  

Passengers have complained en-masse that dirty rice was served on brand new Vande Bharat train. Rest of the food also, the complainant emphasized, was stale. I think it's a deep-rooted conspiracy in all probability, foreign one. A plot to popularize Hot Dog/Hamburger/Pasta/Macaroni. You know! Rice is grown from soil (dust) You have not seen how barefoot men and women stand for hours in knee deep water and plant paddy for you year after year. Here You are! just one journey a rice plate not up to your taste and you begin cribbing. Brother! rice is produced from dust; we are all dust and eventually have to return to dust. 

 

You people eat outside, if you see sweets, ghee, oil being made, you will vow never to eat. But world does not run like that. We do go out; we do eat out.  Once during my train journey from Dahod to Mumbai, I got very bad food in train. When I asked for the complaint book, he asked me ‘Why didn't you tell earlier, you were a railway officer, I would have cooked fresh food for you. In retrospect, I feel, the private contractor is in this business to earn profit, not reputation or customers or goodwill for that matter.  Contractor did never nurture ‘My Ambition in Life’ to feed you in Vande India or anywhere in India. In case you have any desire to eat ‘fifty-six bhog’ on the train. It is possible only when you carry your food with you. To have fifty-six-inch chest is possible but if you say Chhappan (fifty-six) Bhog, you will not be able to find it even in the ‘Palace on Wheel’. So why desire what you can't get?

 

The Railways is for your travel needs. Its core competency is Transportation and not Catering/cooking delectable food. You who only bother about your food. You remain blissfully ignorant of what is the situation on the ground. What the ‘motherland’ is going through? How many people do not even get two square meals.  Look at you! Seems to be living for food and not other way round. You are at your best in throwing tantrums while travelling by Indian Railways. Sometimes it is AC- Inadequate cooling or excessive cooling. Sometimes the complaint of cockroaches, sometimes of rats. When all this comes out in your house, to whom do you go to complain? You should be environment friendly. Rats and cockroaches have been companions of man since time immemorial. Now why this urban-Naxal kind of hostility towards them?

 

It is not child’s play to run trains on time while giving all these facilities to its passengers. The bed-sheet should be clean; the pillow should be as clean as new. tickled and blankets should be dry cleaned after every usage. Wow! You just bought the train by buying a ticket of over-night journey. The water also needs to be pure. Toilet needs to be sanitized. The train should also arrive on time. The tea needs to be fresh, hot and not stink like the one prepared in the morning but served till evening.  

 

Do you behave so demanding at home or you save all these tantrums for the railways? Brother! If you are so fussy carry your ‘Imported rice’ with saffron fragrance. We too are not eager to ‘cater’ to your taste buds. You are happy, we are also happy. Vande Mataram!!