Railways - Profit

Sharmaji wanted to book a ticket to travel to Gorakhpur from Mumbai. He decided to use the online booking facility provided by Indian Railways for his booking. 

Train booking starts at 8am, 90 days before the date of travel. At 0800 hrs he found that there are 600 odd tickets available on train no 1015 (Kushinagar Express).  Immediately, he keyed in his credit card number to book the ticket. 

After the credit card was validated, when the ticket was issued, it was found that the ticket had a waiting list of over 500!

In the brief period of around a minute, not only were the 600 tickets issued but an extra 500 tickets were sold!

A dejected Sharmaji decided to cancel the ticket. He was charged Rs. 20 for each ticket he cancelled. As he had booked six tickets, he had to shell out Rs.120 for cancelling wait listed tickets.

If we assume that there will be atleast 250 cancellations per train (an estimate on the lower side). Railways make around Rs. 5000 (at Rs. 20/- per cancelled ticket) every day per train for cancellation.

Now the Indian Railways run around 9000 trains per day. This gives us Rs. 45000000 ( Rs. 4.5 Crores).

There are 30 days in a month. The cancellation charges collected will be Rs. 135 crores.

12 months a year should give us Rs. 1620 crores for doing nothing but issuing and cancelling tickets!

Remember these estimates are on the lower side. Actual figures could be lot more than calculated.  Now you know how railways make a profit.

We can understand a cancellation charge being levied on confirmed tickets. But for waitlisted tickets, such a huge charge is criminal. With no competition, railways is indulging in a monopoly practise that the general public may not be aware of.

Need a smell dimension

It is high time that we add another dimension to our film viewing. Films already engage our sense of sight and sound. Why not smell? Won't it feel wonderful to view films with this added dimension?

Imagine watching Slumdog Millionaire or even Dev.D with the smell dimension included. 

Consider Dev.D for that matter. Smell of hay when a mattress is laid down in the fields. Smell of Punjabi dishes at the wedding feast. Lovely perfumes at the reception.  Smell of Ariel when Paro washes Dev's clothes! An obnoxious smell when Dev throws up etc.

Wonder why this has not become a reality.

It will not be practical to have the entire auditorium throw up different fragrances depending on the scene being flashed. There could be a lot of people who are allergic to smell and would prefer to be excused from such experiences.  We need a different solution.

I have seen stamps which retain smell of sandalwood, roses etc even after a year. I have also seen desktop calendar’s which smell of roses etc depending on the picture in the calendar. So it is definitely possible to build long term fragrances into objects.

Personally, I would prefer a device which could be carried in and out of an auditorium. I should be able to either connect it a port on my seat or could be controlled like any other wi-fi device. I should be able to increase/decrease the intensity of the smell being thrown out and it should not disturb any of my neighbors who may not want to enjoy this experience. 

Obviously, I would want to switch it off whenever not required.  Who would want to experience the smell of Dev’s room and ultimately volunteer to clean it up for him!

Hope it becomes realty before I become too old to experience it. We can only get it when we start asking for it.

Too much

The Satyam fraud has thrown the spotlight on the fact that man cannot be happy with a few thousand crores in his bank. I have always wondered how much is too much.

The other day, I found a picture in one of the newspapers which showed Ramalinga Raju being led away after a court hearing. He was not handcuffed as petty criminals are. This spoof is to highlight that larger the loot, higher the respect from the authorities.

Slumdog Millionaire

Saw both versions (English and Hindi) of Slumdog Millionaire.  

Some of the scenes have been removed from the hindi version. Notably the ones where foul language is used.

I liked the movie and am a little surprised that it has won so many awards.  Probably the west is fed up of movies showing a clean and sanitised environment all the time. 

What surprised me most is why did the director need to take the liberty of showing the Quiz Programme (KBC) as a live one. He could have got the same effect even with a recorded version of the quiz. Altough the slums and the connected events have been captured 'as it is' to give arty look to the movie, the deviation in the quiz format is indeed surprising.

I wonder what would be the reaction to the movie if another dimension like smell is added to it. Would the west be able to sit thru the entire movie and heap awards on the same?

Hope someday we will have cinemas where besides the sence of sight and sound we will also have an active participation of smell and even touch if possible.

Movies 2008

Kamal Hasan's Dasaavataram (Tamil) is my choice for the most entertaining movie of 2008. Really enjoyed watching the movie. Thanks Kamal for taking the effort.

Movie of the year would go to Srinivasan's Kathaparayumbol (Malayalam). No doubt that it has been remade in Tamil as Kuselan starring Rajnikant and as Billo Barbar starring Shah Rukh Khan.

Gajini should get the hype of the year award. I have learnt not to get carried away by the hype created by the promoters.