Chinese Trains, Indian Trains
We travelled from Beijing to Shanghai by the high-speed train days after it was introduced. A week later, on our return journey from a holiday in the land of dragons, we took a train from Ernakulam town in India's southern Kerala state to Coimbatore, across the border in Tamil Nadu. Both the journeys were completed in under five hours. Distance between Beijing and Shanghai: 1318 km; between Ernakulam and Coimbatore: 178 km.
The coaches of the sleek-nosed, gleaming, white Chinese train could match the cabin of a commercial airplane, constantly cleaned by uniformed women attendants on the lookout for any litter.
“Mom, the train is dirty,” said a little girl with a distinct American twang, holding her nose tight as we boarded the Indian train. Her NRI (non-resident Indian) mother and grandfather shushed the little one, lest some patriotic Indian consider her observation blasphemous.
“She is only telling the truth,” said my wife as the girl looked at the elders triumphantly. A ticket examiner said apologetically,” We can’t do anything as the cleaning has been handed over to a private party.”
The two trains are symbolic of the wide gap in the developmental graphs of the world’s two fastest growing economies and the way they are going about it, as your graph has projected.
Like the high-speed train that was introduced on June 30, eve of the 90th birthday of the Communist Party of China, hurtles from the clean Beijing South railway station to the snazzy Shanghai, the country’s financial hub at over 300 kmph, the country seems to be dizzyingly zooming towards its single-hearted pursuit of super power status.
“Why is that we are unable to do what the Chinese are doing?” my wife constantly asked as we took in the capital city with its impressive six-lane highways and eyes-pleasing landscaping, the Forbidden City and other tourist spots, kept spectacularly clean, despite the thousands who visit the sites every day.
I said China had a policy that controlled migration of rural people to the urban centres.
“What’s the population of Beijing,” she asked.
About 20 million, I said.
“That’s more than Delhi’s population. Still look at the difference,” my wife said pointedly.
If Beijing was a revelation, spanking Shanghai was a confirmation that we have decades to catch up with our neighbour.
No one was seen urinating or defecating on the roadsides or along the railway tracks, a ubiquitous part of Indian scenery. The reason was not difficult to find. The Chinese have built lavatories across these cities, helping the people maintain their personal dignity. And these public conveniences are kept spotlessly clean, mostly. Many of these were set up ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
The Chinese trains, however, have not been without their share of glitches. Hours after we arrived in Shanghai, heavy rains and lightning brought the entire Bullet train system on the sector to a halt. Local news reports said the passengers were stuck in the fully-sealed trains for over two hours and there was panic onboard.
A collision between two high-speed trains on July 23 near the city of Wenzhou that left over 35 people dead underlines the need for improving safety measures. The speed of the Beijing-Shanghai train, which was initially planned to run at 350 kmph, was reduced to 300 kmph and later to 250 kmph due to these concerns.
“We have accidents almost daily even when our trains run at bullock-cart speed,” my wife underlined the irony.
You just can’t win some arguments.
