By default

How much of your life have you lived by 'default' and how much by conscious choice? How much of your life has been doing what 'everybody' would do faced with your choices would do? Some might argue that choice is an illusion, many of the prior events leading to those choices have been or are outside your control. For the sake of the belief of being in control of destiny I would assert that isn't the case. Yes, to a large extent there are 'defaults' in our lives, good, bad, depends. But 'default' is a choice as well, usually the easier, safer, least resistance one. .

My point is about realising the freedom of choice, and about giving fair treatment to them when we have the opportunity to choose.

I often wonder how I ended up doing what I do today, which is IT architecture, a field that I enjoy, and that has taught me much of what I know, including a few odd skills that pay the bills! Not that I studied it as a discipline in school, or when computers became big took to computing like a fish to pond or something like that. The system I grew up in assessed me reasonably good in quantitative aptitude and thus more of an engineering bent one might say. My Father, a doctor, was averse to the idea of me pursuing a medical profession or civil services, we did not have law or business in the family, not wonder what I did then - Engineering! That was my 'default', leading to the next 'default' of when having the choice of any subjects to pick from having ended up in the top 0.25% of the entrance test candidates, I picked what 'everybody' said was the best, and then when came to choice to work I started in an industry where 'everybody' joined at the time, IT.  I was not alone, and there was the reassurance 'everybody' else doing what I was doing. Having entered a frame, choices opened up after, like where I would work, what sort of work I could do, within the reasonably large confines of what constitutes IT, which thankfully is diverse enough.

What stopped me from being a writer (not just random blogs), a politician, a doctor, a lawyer or business man. As I recollect my impressions of these roles at the time, its not a pretty picture I had or 'chose' to have -
Writer - a bit of a gamble, you might hit big or not struggle to pay the bills
Lawyer - too many lies, having to defend the criminals against your conscience
Politician - too corrupt, immoral
Civil service - politicised, corrupt, inefficient
Doctor - too much study, too little result at end of it

I am sure for those not in my profession would have something in their list like,
IT Engineer - socially inept nerd, confined to stare at a 11-22 inch screen for a third or more of his conscious life (which I can assure is not the case and is just a choice some engineers make).

When light shining on to the mind was coloured by the media, opinions at the dinner table, from friends, stereotypes no wonder the thoughts had acquired the colour of the choice they were going to make.There was a degree of objectivity to my choice, but there was also the overwhelmingly unfair dismissal of all the other options on the table.

There could have been another way to look at them,

Writer - creative fulfilment, chance to influence with ideas
Lawyer - opportunity to serve, to drive justice and to earn good money
Politician - to serve, to reform
Civil service - prestige, power to reform
Doctor - to care and cure, even had a few odd genes to that effect


When in the relative unknown and easy to influence, is it not easy to defend against the onslaught of opinions, to separate fact from bias. That is where the 'defaults' start shaping up and before we know have narrow ourselves down to very few choices.

Happily the good news is that, there is still a choice. The routes will be different to now than earlier, but I am sure they are there, if I want to. Maybe not a doctor still, I will be wilted and treating myself by the time I get there.

More importantly however  as a parent today I need to think what influences am I serving up consciously or subconsciously on my children and am I protecting them from influences that can constrain them. I have a 'powerful' role here and I need to ensure that my children as they grow acquire facts of choices in what they can do, an early realisation of their inner strengths, so they can decide objectively and unfettered by opinions of others.  And that when it is time for them to choose, their objectivity and knowledge stands up with conviction and helps them make an objective, fair choice. Its an experiment and if I succeed who knows, I might write a book with this post as my foreword, titled 'By default'!

Where do I start?..Choo Chuk Chuk!

It takes a degree of force to get out of a writer block. Of late it has been omnipresent, subsiding  briefly in moments when neither a laptop or a tablet is at hand to make a start. So than waiting for that divine moment of alignment, I make a start anyway. And in order to ease my block I will pick a topic that I like - Railways.

Lets take the case of British railways Vs the Indian railways Vs the Japanese railways. I have been fortunate enough to have had a good bit experience on the latter and a fair bit on the former two networks. I must admit on the whole whilst each system has its warts, on the whole I admire all the 3.

Bulk of my experience in Japan was with the Tokyo metro network, one journey on the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Kyoto and a few out of town journeys to places like Kawaguchiko and Nikko.The Tokyo network is remarkable in its punctuality, size, coverage and how it burrows deep layers under layers under the city, particularly one in a seismically active region. Obviously some big time engineering challenges have been won there. The inter city network comprising of Shinkansens is fast, clinical and frequent. The metro within Tokyo is very precise on timings and the branch lines have a charm of their own. Running through pretty towns and villages alongside sea and countryside. The 2 carriage train from Tokyo to Kawaguchiko felt very similar to that train that Chihihiro boards in 'Spirited away' (a must see Japanese animation for kids).

The British railways are strikingly comparable to Japanese rail. With the difference of speeds, rolling stock and a slightly more relaxed order of punctuality the modern British railways have broadly a similar footprint. London compares to Tokyo, the intercity networks compare well to the Great Western, East Coast and West coast lines. And the branch lines or smaller town to city networks compare well to franchises like the Chiltern, Transpennine express, London Midland, Northern and Capital connect. Indeed one of the charms of the British railways are the wide array of franchises, and their respective identities, liveries, rolling stock and landscapes. Of all the journeys in the UK to date I would rate my favourite in terms of charm as the Chiltern between London Paddington and Leamington Spa, East Coast between Kings Cross and Edinburgh and  the First Great Western between Paddington and Worcester. In terms of efficiency and value for money I would rate Virgin West Coast as the best. Only slight drawback their being their narrower than normal carriages. But that was part of the engineering to have them bend along curves.

 

Left to right - Great Western HSTs @Paddington station, Cross Country Voyager @ Manchester Piccadilly and the London DLR heading into Canary Wharf- few of the many varieties in British rail.

Coming to Indian railways then. Well, nothing small about them, the width or the length, the distances or the time you spend travelling. Indeed when I was just watching YouTube video recently, I was struck by the average number of carriages on Indian trains. 20-22 were a norm. In Japan I do not remember, but in England the longest I have seen are 10-12 carriages with most being between 4-6. The time dimension seems by far more relaxed compared to the British and Japanese counterparts My earliest journeys between Chandigarh, Delhi, Bombay, Pune are dotted with names like Ekta express which took 8 hours to cover 250 Km, Frontier mail which took about 31 hours to cover 1300 KM odd between Chandigarh and Bombay, Janata express which took 38 hours between Bombay and Delhi and stopped at virtually anything that could pass for a station. Of course there were the more elite versions like the Rajdhani and the Shatabdi, that had right of way an average 110-12 Km/h speed. Not too mention they could also leave you feeling spoilt and a few kilos extra by the time you reached your destination with the in car catering. My fondest memories would be 1) my Rajdhani trip between Delhi and Bangalore - what better post honeymoon trip home with one's better half in a nice cosy 1st class coupe! 2) Bangalore to Kottayam (for Kerala backwaters) in Bangalore - Kanyakumari express and 3) Shatabdi express between Chandigarh and Delhi.

There is the hall of notoriety as well comprising 1) a trip of a five engineering students with 2 reserved tickets aboard the Delhi to Bombay August Kranti Rajdhani. Imagine no seats for a 17 hour journey outside a none too pleasant toilet! and 2) a trip of a family of 4 back from Bangalore to Delhi with only 1.5 berth. Discomfort of decades old is a sweet memory now!

Indeed any Indian of my age or older would have a smattering of railway journeys to recount and fondly remember. The opening up of aviation sector and the no frills airlines, made air travel more attractive so by comparison the following generation would have had less of thrills by rail. Poor them!

So how would I rate amongst the 3
Speed and efficiency - Japan Rail, British Rail, Indian Railways
Frequency and ease of reservation - British rail, Japan Rail, Indian rail
Charm and adventure - Indian rail, British rail, Japan rail
Surprise - Indian rail

(I am not inclined to report on cleanliness on any having recently read a few reports on forensic examination of train carriages in London, knowing how it can be in India and not remembering much of Japan rail.)

So did I exit my writer's block. Not sure, but I did end up fondly remembering a lot about my travel, trains and the people I shared them with. Time to get a good nights sleep now!