Anubhuti? What Anubhuti?

Gautam Siddharth
27 February 2013, 05:33 PM IST

Recoiled in dread on hearing the Rail Mantri, Pawan Kumar Bansal, say that he plans to introduce luxury coaches called "Anubhuti" — to be connected with Shatabdis and Rajdhanis.

Dread because although an infrequent train traveler, the last few times I've taken AC-2 or AC-1 on Rajdhanis, the experience has left me shaken — literally and figuratively. The last train ride was just a few weeks ago, on one of the country's older, premier trains, Prayagraj to Allahabad for covering the Mahakumbh.

Principally against government discount on tickets for "accredited" journalists and travelling at personal or company cost, each time I bundle myself in to one of the AC coaches, I feel cheated.

Curtains hanging loose and ripped in places, the linen smeared, a stale, musty smell and total absence of anything approaching basic hygiene. The less said about the bogs the better. You take the train no more for pleasure but out of majboori — an unfortunate compulsion.

In the last 10 or 15 years, the slide in AC services has been coterminous with expansion in the number of trains. Today, there are far too many trains, far greater number of accidents and mass deaths, and poor services in "premium" AC categories. And this is where I've a bone to pick with Mr Bansal.

Many would have stood up and applauded had the Railway minister said he would upgrade the AC coaches, or get new ones. Instead, he sent this Anubhuti floater — a move that's going to send the already abysmal AC services further down the tube.

Reason: all our mantris, railway officials and the rest of the VIPs will take Anubhuti, where they will be fussed over silly by the staff while paying nothing for the service since their travel is free. It will be a coach brimming with babus and netas and the aam aadmi, who spends out of his pocket for AC travel, will find himself being treated like the proverbial Senegalese leper.