Delay by chance

Date : 7th January

Time : 9:00 PM

Vishal calls me and tell me that he will be in Delhi to catch a train to Guwahati ( on the way to Shillong..). His expected time of arrival in Delhi 10:00 AM on 8th January ( by train on a winter morning ;) ). As fate had it..I was on-call on 7th night till 3:30 AM :(

Date: 8th January

Time :11 AM

Friendship is deadly...makes you do crazy things like running towards a metro station on one of the coldest days of the season in Delhi, catching the metro by running down the stairs and just managing to enter the compartment just so to save 10-15 minutes...

Vishal's train is late by about an hour...and well so was I...

Anyways while I was still in the Metro, I got a call from Meet to say that he was with Vishal and they were waiting for me...

Managed to get to the Railway station without any further adventures. And as always, it is gr8 to catch up with Meet and Vishal, talking about the good old days, swapping stories about the rest of the group ( special mention about Abhay Murarka - bhai, you better explain the stories I have been hearing about you!!)

AND then came the announcement - "Guwahati se jaane wali 12423 Guwahati-Delhi Rajdhani Exp 7 ghante ki deri se chal rahi hai. Guwahati ko jaane wali 12424 Delhi-Guwahati Rajdhani Exp apne nirdharit samay 2:30 baje ki jagah shaam to 8:50 par chalegi" :D :D

We then hauled all their luggage to the cloak room..spent an hour in the line as most of the trains were late, some by up to 37 hours.

Next Stop : CP

The scene was as if there was no heavy winter in Delhi. Most girls roaming about seemed to be straight out of some fashion week's winter collection.. ( Not that I am complaining...however after looking at them, we were feeling over dressed with 2 sweaters and a jacket :P )

Spent the afternoon walking in the inner circle, met Meet's roommate and his friends for lunch at Haldirams, then we met another of Meet's friend afterwards. Meet then had to leave for Noida so it was me and Vishal again.

We decided to walk back to the station as there was still a lot of time before his train left and the best conversations happen while walking. :)

Read Vishal's take on the same topic at http://biliex.blogspot.com/2011/01/lucky-delay.html

PS: Meet..pics bhej de bhai :)

Right to Education

And so why am I suddenly talking about the RTE today???


Well, my cab driver today was a talkative fellow who was apologetic because he was late, he was late because he had to purchase forms for nursery admission for his son whom he wants to get admitted to a private school and not to a Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) School.

After talking to him, I realized how important the RTE is for a country like India, in fact I was very happy that the UPA Government has implemented the RTE, but as I read online, it was simply the sad old story that repeats itself everywhere in India...scheme to bana di, but implementation bhool gaye...

I know the implementation of RTE is a long term project, but shouldn't it have at least started now?

According to what I read; It has been 8 months since the act came into force on 1st April 2010, but private schools openly flout the guidelines of RTE by conducting screening tests for students and interviews for parents and Government schools...well they don't have the number of teachers required...and even where they have the manpower, the teachers are simply not interested.

And how and why would they be. From what I could find on the net, the average starting salary for a government teacher in a city is around 8,000-10,000 while it is even less for smaller towns. How can you expect a person who is earning such a petty amount to be interested in teaching...?

Well, I hope, there is some turnaround soon, so that even a 5 year old son of a cab driver can dream of becoming a doctor or engineer.


For more info on RTE : http://right-to-education-india.blogspot.com/