Aam Kumar’s wish-list for Railway Minister on the eve of the Railway Budget

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Dear Railway Minister,

Greetings! Sorry for disturbing. I realize you must be extremely busy doing the arithmetic for the railway budget. Though I am just a common man not belonging to a specific category such as backward or forward caste, minority, majority, senior citizen, I have some demands. If you could incorporate some of them, I would be very grateful:

1. I am not an atheist and just like I believe in God and pray to him, I believe that IRCTC too is imbued with divine powers and can be moved by the piety of the devotee. Can you make available some flowers, agarbatti etc. on the site so that we can appeal to His kindness to get our tickets booked?

2. Our pantry cars are deeply inspired by the movie Ratatouille, but we treat our rats very cruelly. They are forced to share the seats with humans and nibble on the pantry food. Can you please introduce special coaches for them, with seats of their size? And a separate pantry with reservation facilities?

3. Can you please request the ISU (International System of Units) to introduce separate units of time suited for the Indian Railways? The units could be: right time  = 10 minutes late by default; 1 hour delay = 2 hours delay and so on.

4. Can you please reduce the service tax we have to pay to the Ticket Inspector for getting a berth in case of waiting tickets? His chai pani is usually of Taj or Oberoi standards. I am yet to go to either of these two hotels, but have paid for his 5-star chai pani countless times.

5. Some signboards like “Smoking is prohibited” are only show pieces on trains. Can we replace them with pictures of Poonam Pandey instead for a more aesthetic design?

6. Can we officially declare our rail tracks as public toilets? In any case, people use it that way. In fact, public discussions on politics in the morning on railways tracks with a ‘Lota’ in hand can be promoted internationally as a vibrant symbol of our democracy.

7. I have never been spared by hijras in any of my train journeys. Why can’t their share be included in the train ticket itself? Or better still, you can put their forceful recovery tactics to better use by making them tax recovery agents.

8. Since we are a country where Gandhi was born, can you provide roses in compartments to give to fellow passengers when they throw wastes/eatables outside the window, saying, “Get well soon”?

9. Can you please start a new train from Durg (Chhattisgarh) to Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh)? (sorry, it is a personal demand, but if railway ministers can carry their personal train network in Bihar and Bengal previously, then why not me?)

10. Last but not the least, can you please provide me the Twitter handle of the lady announcer on our platforms? “Your attention please!! Train Number so and so is running late by 50 minutes. Your inconvenience is deeply regretted.” Aaah! I have nursed a crush on her since eternity. I just love her voice. But never got to see who she is.

Hope sir, my demands would meet a better fate than the dustbin at the corner of your room.

Yours sincerely,
Aam Kumar

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