India is shining
I was travelling to India after more than two years. Visiting India after this long was a different experience - I noticed a lot of changes, many good and to be welcome. I could read the signs of the ruling party proclaiming that India is shining. I do not represent any party but I felt it was true, for the most part. Some of the things that impressed me are:
Air travel:
Our first surprise was travel by Air-India. I was a little hesitant but my wife insisted trying this as the price difference was roughly $ 200 per ticket, compared to a competitive airline. If I were single, the story would have been different, but I am no more and so the difference in price in this economy made a lot of sense to me and so I agreed. Special sale going on in Air-India!
People used to tell horror stories about travel by Air-India - missing baggage, delayed aircraft - not minutes or hours but days, poor customer service, old and noisy carriers, crying babies and what not. But believe it or not, we did not face any of these problems. We got good customer service, the aircraft were clean and the flights, mostly, were on time. Food was excellent (I still remember the delicious chicken tikka masala) and they had a good choice of alcohol and wines.
We had to take a connecting flight to Chennai from Mumbai. This was better than taking an Indian Airlines flight in Mumbai as the airports are not adjacent. Another advantage was that we did not have to clear customs in Mumbai - everything could be done in Chennai - very convenient.
Airport:
Airports look and function much better now.
Chennai airport was better than Mumbai. It was cleaner, larger and more orderly. Traditionally, it used to take roughly an hour after landing to come out. But believe me, this time the whole process took less than 30 minutes. The baggage came within a few minutes; the immigration was not crowded and took less than five minutes. There was a clean walkthrough for unmarked passengers through Customs and what not. Wow! The waiting area is vast, with a lot of chairs so no need sit on carts, the toilets were and even had toilet rolls. There were multiple gates so there was no crowding at the gates, and all flights connected through aerobridges. So there was no struggle to reach the flight at night.
The best part was outside the airport. Now there is more space for early comers to wait. The auto drivers are polite and do not bug. I recall the days when I used to take a taxi and get away from the airport - without waiting for my brother to come and pick me up - just to avoid the auto-drivers. This time I told them that my brother was coming to pick me up and no one asked me again. Excellent!
Call taxi:
Another interesting and useful change I found was the call taxi. Although I saw this two years ago, not many players were there in this market. I was told that there are 7 to 8 now, and owing to competition, the rates are attractive and they arrive in no time. "Give me a buzz once the train comes and I will be there in a couple of minutes, sir," and he was there in two minutes. Amazing! There is a built-in meter in all the taxi's and not a penny more not a penny less. No 'paathu pottu kudunga sir'. It looked very reliable as it costed a couple of more rupees than autos but I do not know if they do the same 'soodu veykarathu' for the meter.
Bus travel:
The bus bodies are new and seats very comfortable. With a semi-seater, we could almost sleep. An attached toilet and a mini-pantry area would make the travel complete. I think it will take some more time for this but the equivalents just do the job perfectly. The private bus we took stopped in a rest-area kind of place where we could find clean toilets, for both sexes, a food court and a gas station, an ATM - just similar to a service area in the US. The tractor loaded with hay that stood in the gas station was a visual treat of the rural-urban mix.
Train travel:
I always hate going through the Railway time-table to spot the trains and timings. Now Indian Railways has a website with wonderful search features that allow to spot the train easily. I could easily plan our trip to Sankarankovil and Kerala through this. I could even see online booking feature, maps, nearby attractions and bunch of other useful stuff. All these could not help trains come on time, however.
ATMs:
Most of the gas stations have bank ATMs. It took just 10 minutes to open a new account at a private bank - with cheque book, temporary ATM card and, optionally, passbook. I recall the clerk still searching for the passbook for the account that was opened the week before with a nationalised bank. What a difference! No wonder VRS was more attractive for most bank employees!
Telephones:
Thanks to Sam Pitroda, we can find telephones in every nook and corner - this is not a recent story. What is new is the features introduced recently - mobile home phone. Targeted primarily for small business people, the local phone could be carried within a range and made calls through that. What flexibility! You don't have to pay for incoming calls, you don't have to carry multiple phones and the price is reasonable. Not a bad idea at all!
Mobile phones:
A huge revolution is going on in this. So many phone models - with light, light-weight, colour display, camera, speaker phone, PDA and what not - and so many providers and so many plans to choose from. Prepaid and postpaid. More than calling, SMS and MMS are widely used by the people. In some plans, it's free to receive. The auto-driver near by apartment gave me a business card with his
mobile phone number on it - "Don't take the trouble of coming home. Call me in my cell and I will be there in a minute." - Phenomenal growth!
Internet:
Another amazing growth is in Internet cafes. I could see at least two per popular street - and one from Satyam iWay. I was told that local vendors offer better speed at a cheaper rate. But for me, to browse, to check mails, to read news and to pay my dues online, the speed was sufficient.
You want to browse from home? No worries!
BSNL offers Internet through home phone lines without any extra set-up. All a call away and conveniently billed along with the telephone charges. I remember the days my brother used to go to the telephone exchange, stand in a long queue and pay Rs 3,000 to get Internet at home. Wow, what growth!
Restaurants:
A lot of friends told me the best part of a visit to India will be the food - indeed. Not even one meal was disappointing. Food that I cannot forget are from Appachi in Pondicherry (for the delicious fish and 'poondu kolambu'), Murugan Idli Kadai (for the hot idlis and variety chutneys) and Punjabi Dhaba (for the hot jilebis) in Chennai, Aaryaas (for the sambar served in kadai) and Rock City (for the chicken) in Trichy, Venkatesa Bhavan in Srirangam (for the 'keerai' and 'medhu vadai'), Ramakrishna's in Kerala (for the 'eriseri', 'avial' and 'kaalaan') and Ram Prasad in Tirunelveli (for the 'pongal' and 'vadai'). I could find multi-cuisine restaurants becoming popular, reflecting people's enthusiasm to try new food.
Cars:
I could see a lot more cars this time and the buying power has increased tremendously. This is a very good sign of growth! Toyota has introduced 'Corolla' and 'Camry' and Honda has introduced 'City' and 'Accord' apart from others like Daewoo, Mitsubishi, Ford, GM, Daimler Chrysler and Hyundai. Maruti, Telco and Hindustan Motors have their own style and market. More the competition, better the prices for buyers. Most of them buy through loans. Some of the
SUVs and vans are very comfortable for long travel. Roads have improved a lot and it feels safer to drive. The 2 1/2 hour travel in
Kerala on a Toyota Qualis was not tiring at all. I see a lot of car owners preferring to drive these days. Once the Golden Quadrilateral Project is in place, we are all set to drive ourselves across the country - I am sure.
Overall, the buying power has increased and people have shaken off the traditional money-saving mentality. Courtesy the reduced interest rates in banks, you could see money flowing everywhere. Visit 'Globus' or
'Spencer Plaza' in Chennai next time and you can see for yourself.
The trip was enjoyable for the most part. India was really shining - as one of my friends mentioned that "one should be excited to go back to India and not prepare himself". But for two things - all the above changes reflect only one side of India, the positive side.
The negative side (I would prefer to say the slower side) is that the attitude of some people never change. People still fight in a queue, youngsters still stand in the tea shop corners ogling at girls when their fellow-mates in the adjacent cyber-cafe are looking for admissions in universities. I could see an imbalance. May be it will take time to change.
After all, Rome was not built in a day!
Rammesh Rajagopal
Website: rammesh.kaaninilam.com
