Escaping Flatland

Various explanations have been provide for India’s cornering of the worldwide IT outsoucing and BPO markets - from low wages to the availability of local talent to English-speaking skills to the 12 hour time-difference. But they miss a key point: Indians are good at following rules and processes. Tell us what to do, write the rules, and we will follow them. To the ‘T’. Just look at the multitudes of companies certified for ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 awards. Give us some more time, add more constraints, and we will figure out how to break the system. Just look at the plethora of companies with SEI CMM and Malcolm-Baldridge awards. Delhi-ites even have a word for it: Jugaar.

Jugaar (n): The act of finding a loophole and exploiting it. Such exploitation could be a source of competitive advantage, but is willingly shared with friends and foes, typically to gain bragging rights - far more valuable currency than mere rupees.

The government decrees: Photography is prohibited. Making it difficult for honest bloggers like me to trace photos besides the official variety. Junta responds: Flickr Metro Photos.

The government decrees: Do’s and Don’ts on the Metro [Link].

Don’t share your card or token with another person on the same journey.

Don’t travel on the roof of the train. (Travelling on the roof or any other part of the train, not intended for the use of the passengers, will result in a fine of Rs. 50/-or imprisonment of 1 month or both.)

50 bucks? That’s too little, I think. A cuppa at Cafe Coffee Day.

Walking on Metro tracks without lawful authority will be punishable by imprisonment up to 6 months or a fine of up to Rs. 500/- or both.

Unauthorised sale of tickets shall be punishable with a sentence of upto 3 months and/or fine up to Rs. 500/-.

Is there a black market for metro tickets, I wonder?

Any Unauthorised sale of articles at Metro Railway premises shall be punishable with a fine of up to Rs. 500/- or imprisonment up to 6 months

So, no New-York-Metro-style soliciting to bored passengers, or DTC-style moustached peddlers of herbal toothbrushes (aka neem tree branches), fertility drugs (aka deer scrotum) and lady hair flowers (aka chameli garlands).

Don’t use the lift, it is meant for the physically challenged

Physically Challenged? PC-speech arrives in Delhi!

Wiki’s take.

When the Metro first opened, the crowds at the stations outnumbered an Amitabh first-day first-show opening in Allahabad. There was such a deluge of job applicants that the government set up web based recruitment results. That idea must have been a big hit - it continues to this day.

The libertarian in me would question the privacy implications of posting candidates names and medical examination dates online. But in a nation with a billion people, no social security numbers, and hundreds of Ramvir Singhs and Sudhir Kumars, that is armchair academia (I know, that expression is doubly-redundant). Besides, this beats queueing up for hours in front of poorly lit bulletin boards and jostling for a glimpse of your misspelt name on a dot-matrix printout with missing pins and re-re-recycled ribbons. Sigh - brings back old memories: board exam results lines longer than those at Aishwarya Rai’s wax replica at Madam Tussauds’ or end semester marksheet displays in the monkey-infested academic block at DCE.

But then, how many safai karamcharis will have access to the internet? There are about 234,000 internet users in Delhi according to Rightserve, out of a population of 15 million (1.6% penetration), so the numbers would be slim.

They run at intervals of 8 to 10 minutes from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The frequency of service and times of operation will be increased as the commuter traffic builds up. The system is designed to operate at a frequency of 3 minutes [Link]

So if you’re into late night partying, look for a rickshaw or bus. Unless you’re a 16-year old girl. Or an 18 year old girl. Or any age, for that matter. On second thoughts, maybe the 10 p.m. deadline is not that bad.

Trains currently consist of 4 coaches - two driving coaches and two trailing coaches. However, the system is designed for trains with upto 8 coaches. Each coach has seating for 60 passengers, with space for another 325 standing passengers. [Link]

Like many other civil projects, expansion was a design goal for the Metro project: current frequency 8-10 minutes, can handle 3 minutes; current coaches 4, can handle 8. However, just like many other civil projects, I feel that they underestimated the demand. Built-in expansion capacity = 4x to 5.3x. However, the current frequency is already down to 4 minutes on some lines [Link]. Also, Delhi’s population is growing at a rate of 3% p.a, mostly due to immigration.

According to a 2001 census by the Indian government, 13.0 million people lived in the Delhi metropolitan area. However, it is now estimated that more than 15.0 million people live in Delhi and its surrounding suburbs with migrants accounting for 60% of the increase in population [Link]

Fares vary by distance, a smart move in India. New York Metro or Paris Metro style flat pricing would have caused lots of joyrides! Also, I found no evidence of the crippling student fares (popularly called “staff” discount) - concessions offered to Delhi University student unions who exploited the free ride policy for DTC employees. They claimed to be DTC employees/staff as well, usually by saying “staff” (hence the moniker) when a timid conductor would ask them to buy a ticket. Any hint of resistance or appeal to logic would lead to riots and beatings of said conductor.

Possibly breaking from the Public Transport Tradition of lossmaking (DTC, Indian Railways), the Metro seems to be making a handsome profit.

The Metro rail earned Rs 4.27 crore as passenger revenue between January and March ...and raised Rs 1.78 crore by inviting advertisements and renting out parking lots and shopping complexes... while the overall expenditure for running the trains stood at Rs 4.53 crore, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) Chairman Madan Lal Khurana told reporters. [Link]

This is inspite of very reasonable fares. The price range is Rs. 6 - 22, compared to $3.00 on the NY Metro [Link] and $1.95 - $7.30 on the Chicago MetraRail [Link]. The initial ROI models for the Metro (in 1995) assumed a base rate of Rs. 5 per passenger trip of 7.12 km. Adjusting for 5% inflation over 11 years, that price should have been Rs. 8.55. Still, the Japanese should be happy with this investment (OECF Japan provided 56% of the project financing [Link]).


Electronic indicator boards show the destination
and time remaining for the next train arrival.
Heavy use is expected: a one-day tourist card @ Rs. 70 needs about 5 trips in a day to break even, as compared to an NY Metro Weekly pass @ $24 which allows a leisurely 8 trips over 7 days. The cards are contactless stored-value smartcards - better than NY tokens (now obsolete), or swipe-Metrocards-that-don’t-register-the-first-time. And tailoring to the desi mentality, the card requires a Rs. 100 refundable deposit (even on a Rs. 100 card!), unlike the free NY Metrocard.

In my usual weekend call with Mom yesterday [related post], she told me about a Photo Exhibition in the Delhi Metro Connaught Place train station entitled Delhi: Then and Now. Though I couldn’t find a link to the exhibition or to the Connaught Place Metro station, I decided to undertake an exploration of the Metro that was Delhi’s Big Dig.

A British tourist provides a humorous essay, without the usual “Best in the World” platitudes or arcane technical details. Some quintessentially-Delhi moments of hilarity:

So many electronic tokens for the automatic ticket gates were taken home as souvenirs, that there was an acute shortage of tokens at the ticket counters - in some cases they ran out completely.

The emergency intercoms installed in all carriages eventually had to be switched off, as so many people buzzed the driver to tell him to drive faster!

Escalators are a little known phenomenon in Delhi. At some of them guards watch and help people to get on and off, at others "passengers" look a bit confused or excited before they timidly get on [Link]

The trains and stations are airconditioned, providing aunties a cheaper alternative to entering jewellery and sari stores in Karol Bagh for heat-respite and a complimentary Coca Cola. And giving students a hangout option beyond Archies (in the 80s), Nirulas (in the 90s) and Barista (in the early ’00). The thought fills me with nostalgia about my IIML days, when we would visit the library for purely non-academic reasons:

Stocking a rich collection of over 60,000 select learning resources in the discipline of management and related areas, in a variety of formats and operating from a 30,000 sq. ft. spacious, centrally located, air-conditioned building, built on most modern lines, equipped with ergonomically designed furniture & fittings... [Link]

A first world visitor might find this paradoxical - employing manual labor on an expensive, automated technology.

Guards show passengers how to use the electronic tokens on the entrance gates (including us, as we look for a slot to push the tokens inside; instead you have to just press it against the marked area on the gate) [Link]

However, consider the factors - a fast-growing economy trying to proselytize new technology; cheap, low-skilled labor; illiterate/tech-unsavvy masses; socialist job-creation mindset - and it begins to make sense. Visit swanky BPO / IT / software park office buildings, and you will see greeters taking passing employees’ access cards and swiping it for them. ATMs will have armed guards protecting the cash-ki-machine.

Kashmir Gate station is very spacious, very clean, very modern... Signs proclaim that photography, smoking and spitting is forbidden, and people actually stick to it: no fag butts on the regularly swept floors, no posing Punjabi family grinning maniacally into a camera, no paan stained walls or corners.

Must be due to all the safai karamcharis they hired, and a sense of civic pride in a resurgent Delhi. This last titbit is purely anecdotal (thanks, Mom), so I don’t have any news sources to back it up.

(To be Continued)

As we grow older, things change so much, don't they? And yet, they remain the same. Take 12-year old Michael from New Mexico, for instance. His desire for a deep, loving relationship, and his resorting to unorthodox techniques to achieve it. And then, purely for the sake of scientific research, take a 22 and 32 year old. Here is an empirical comparison:

Heartfelt pleas in cyberspace
Michael: "Hello my future Girlfriend. This is what I sound like... Please ping me if you are on Yahoo chat" [Link]

22 year old: "I'm on this site because my mom has been considering rishtay from aunties lately, and I don't like any of their sons, especially the mooch ones who stare." [Shaadi Profile]

32 year old: "Marriage is not a word, it's a sentence____ LIFE SENTENCE.... I am all yours if you will have me"  [Shaadi Profile]

Long Overdue visits to the Barber

Michael	22 year old
32 year old

Angst and baggage, yet a optimism about the future of one's love:
Michael: "If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you"  [Link]
22 year old: "I am looking to meet someone who...loves me in that whole can't sleep, can't eat, can't live without me kind of way." [Shaadi Profile]
32 year old: "I am fiercely independent, although i believe theoretically in interdependence..." [Sikhmatrimonials Profile]

Naive Honesty
Michael: I just lost my girlfriend [Link]
22 year old: i have no parmanent job i m doing my own bussiness of shares for which i want a support to improve my business so it will be preferable for me who will help me financially so the age & complexion of my life partner is not a problem for me.... [Shaadi Profile]
32 year old: To tell you the truth, I am a very shy person who is sometimes afraid to approach a beautiful woman. I get so afraid and just freeze up. I don't know why [Shaadi Profile]

The Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS) has created inSPOT-LA [Link], a website for people (mostly homosexual) who have a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) to inform their recent sexual partners anonymously, by sending ecards. This would alert them to risks of possible infection, and allow them to get checked sooner.

A brilliant idea, I think - circumventing the social ignominy of direct contact while ensuring that the crucial message is sent. Good intentions, meet anonymity. And the ecards express a range of emotions - from the stick-to-the-facts to the colorful to the tongue-in-cheek. Only in California.

Now, if we combine the need for anonymity with impure intentions, there might be a larger market awaiting us. I'm sure Sherron Watkins (who wrote a memo on Enron's dizzying accounting schemes to the CEO), Jeffrey Wigand (the tobacco industry's ultimate insider), and FBI Special agent John Roberts (who spoke of discipline problems within the FBI) would appreciate a Whistleblower's ecard.

These ladies (Desperate Housewives) might like a snitch-on-friends-and-neighbors ecard. And these folks (Coulter, Moore) would be partial to a slander-your-political-opponent ecard.