OPINION

Last week during my journey back from New Delhi to Bathinda in my favorite “Punjab Mail” I was eavesdropping conversation between a family and one lonely traveler.   The family want to exchange a seat of theirs, which is 5 compartments away, with this person so that they can all sit together. The lonely traveler is ready to help out, but with a condition that he don’t mind any berths other than Upper or Side Upper or Side Lower . Seat number the family want to exchange is “42” and they have no clue which berth this is. All were totally clueless to my utter surprise! I had been routinely confronted with this birth allocation problem, especially when tickets in “RAC” gets confirmed while checking the “PNR status”. I could help them out almost instantaneously (which is middle berth!) with a very simple solution. This is the berth allocation for Seat # 1 to #8 1 L 5 M 2 M 6 U 3 U 7 SL 4 L 0 SU Whatever your seat numb...

Everyone in India knows it, experienced it, that the western toilets in trains are virtually useless. Western toilets are for "dry" type, to be used with tissue papers; while a vast majority of Indians prefer water over tissue . Indian/Asian toilets are built for just that; to clean with water. Western toilets with washlet are on rise in Punjab  (you turn a knob to spray water underneath, a miniature version of TOTO ); it works fine as well. But all western toilets comes with a big catch; it obviously not good for public toilets comparing with Asian toilets; know why? Contact Transfer! Skin contact is the "silk route" for microbes to transmit contagious diseases and avoiding surfaces that are exposed to skin contact is the best practice for public hygiene- the very reason why infra-red based automatic water faucets were invented. Coming to Indian Railways- world's biggest open toilet , everyone knows toilets are dirty and emanates ammonia stink such tha...