Don't be Dick from Third Rock from the Sun

Nearly every day newspapers carry details of yet another attack on an Indian and not just in Australia but in several other parts of the world. The Police in Victoria suggested that Indians should maintain a low profile not talking too loudly in public in their native languages.

This set me wondering if this was the correct response to what could be race related violence rather than a simple law and order issue. I am still unsure.

Loudness from anyone regardless of ethnicity is an irritant because it violates other people's space and privacy. Travel in public transport is often made unbearable by loud inconsiderate people. The decision by authorities to control this menace in WA and Queensland is a welcome step. Melbourne should follow suit.

From personal experience I know Aussies, Chinese, and Sub continentals are all guilty of inconsiderate behaviour. Sub continentals who could be anyone from a vast area stretching from the Middle East to Myanmar for want of a better definition get labelled collectively as Indians. They stick out like a sore thumb primarily because there are so few of them and they all bring attention on themselves by their loud behaviour. The loud ones from other demographic groups may be the exception, among Indians every one appears to enjoy intruding on other commuters' private space. Most commuters tend to be catching up on work on their laptops or PDAs, students trying to study for an exam and some just getting into a sleepy, dreamy world. The quiet peaceful travel experience is rudely disturbed by loud cacophony from inconsiderate people who are blissfully unaware of the boiling rage they provoke. And it is not just in public transport. Visitors from India tend to be so loud that neighbours often wonder what was going on, if everything was ok.

To some extent the sub continent has been like another planet disconnected from the rest of the world. With software industry and export education led boom in overseas travel, people from this region are increasingly visible. They need to understand how to behave in conformance to local expectations. Even a simple "do in Rome as Romans do" approach would help. Don't be Dick from "third rock from the sun".


.."Dayajot Singh, who helped organise a protest last year over attacks on Indians, said Indian students should be taught crime prevention as part of their university induction course. "They should be taught that if you go on public transport in this country, people don't talk loudly, they talk in a low voice. If you talk loudly it could be taken as violent behaviour. It's different cultural behaviour — speaking loudly to each other is not taken offence to in India."
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/indians-warned-to-keep-low-profile-in-melbourne/2009/02/19/1234632935216.html

Chennai Metro - Why introduce a new gauge?

During the early seventies, the Central goverment decided that Calcutta and Madras needed underground trains to cope with a rapidly deteriorating traffic situation. The Indian Railways offered to construct one corridor along the city's eye sore Buckingham canal alignment using a low cost cut and cover method. This would have achieved two objectives - eliminate the large open sewer the canal had become while providing Madras with a nice underground metro.

Calcutta's project got under way. Due to a slow moving TN bureaucracy and subsequent financial constraints the Railways amended their original offer to a cost sharing project with the TN goverment having to fork out some of the money. The TN government refused point blank and the project never made it. Eventually some bright spark in the TN government decided that it would be significantly cheaper to have an elevated railway instead of an underground system and tried to persuade the Railways and Central govt to go ahead as committed with this cheaper project. Eventually the TN government had to share the revised project costs anyway and the people of Chennai are left with the hideous monstrosity that passes for the "parakkum rail" aka MRTS while the canal features on foreign TV stations as an example of India's extreme poverty and dirt.

While no TN government tried to improve Chennai's traffic woes, it was again left to the Central government via Sreedharan of Delhi Metro to initiate a Metro for Chennai. A previous TN government tried to convert this project from an underground to an elevated monorail system. Anyone who has visited the Jurong bird park in Singapore or the Sydney Darling Harbour Circular Quay systems can understand how monorails serve only low traffic volumes over short distances and are no answer to the large traffic volumes for a city of Chennai's size. Fortunately for Chennai that monorail project disappeared with the person who proposed it. The proposed underground metro project has most sections above ground and is thus fundamentally flawed. Now the current TN government must understand that a previous Railways Minister caused irreparable harm to the Railways finances by embarking on a foolish Uni gauge project for the country. All of Chennai's suburban railways are on one uniform broad gauge. Then why introduce a new gauge system now? The proposed Chennai Metro on a Standard Gauge doesn't allow for inter operability or provide key operating efficiencies as the rest of the Railways suburban system is on BG.

I realise that most educated middle classes in Chennai travel in chauffeur driven cars and couldn't care less what public transport system was implemented. However, for those who do care this is an issue worth pursuing.