The
Indian Railways, by introducing infotainment consoles – a euphemism
for television-like contraptions – in premier trains such as the
Shatabdi Express, is seemingly either starved of creativity or
funneling a potential scam
Trust
our beloved IR to leave the suspicions of a scam hanging in the air
in anything grandiose it attempts. Proof: the LCD screens aboard the
Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi Express – ostensibly part of its
infotainment (whatever that means) systems. Surely, they could have
installed a PA system, or boards, to achieve the same, was the first
thought that crossed my mind. Loud welcome messages in various
languages greeted passengers just as they settled in their seats and
were about to drift into sleep. The screens did have a purpose after
all; a programme titled “Yoga at the workplace”, with a woman
vainly attempting a Shilpa Shetty, was the day's first, interspersed
with advertisements on incense sticks, nationalised banks and
contraceptives.
Hardened
resolutions for renouncement or a hard-on? Take your pick.
Hilarity
was in store when the video froze with the lady holding her nostrils
indefinitely; that she was demonstrating a breathing exercise was,
perhaps, lost. Did someone not flush the compartment latrine, miss?
As
if this weren’t enough, there was this usher of a visual – which
in computing terms could be likened to a pop-up – wishing a happy
journey. Move over Bernard Shaw, we have a successor.
Perhaps
the first video, or to be precise screenshot, of use, ephemeral
though, was that of the geographical location of the train. Little
did I know that it was portentous of the storm that was to follow –
a comedy movie with all the elements of a tragedy: a bawdy
40-something hero whose sole purpose in life is to leer at a
20-something PYT, who happily obliges him; a comedian who does
likewise to the heroine’s sister; and the heroine’s father who,
in addition to facilitating such scandalous unions, has a feminine
pursuit of his own. Since when did soft porn supplant comedy
entertainers?
IR
did us a service by not screening the movie in its entirety – thank
god for small mercies; but a cartoon, a shameless rip-off of Disney’s
Lion King,
sans its classy animation and dialogues, ensured that I had a prayer
on my lips. Travel documentaries followed, whose utility is anyone's
guess to make.
That
was when I reached out for my headphones, recited a thanksgiving for
its inventor, and plunged into music, whose genre would not have
mattered then. I now knew what it meant to encounter an oasis in the
midst of a desert.
A
few questions remain. Just what on earth was the IR attempting? The
motley of shows dished out, in literary terms, could have been very
much Shakespeare's tragi-comedy Much Ado
About Nothing, in name as well as in
substance. The footage could have been that of the TV channels surfed
by a disinterested couch potato. Was it lost on the authorities that
passengers would not catch up on sleep on a premier rail service?
A
passenger sitting beside me articulated my
ruminations aptly. “I would rather die in a train accident than
watch such trash.”
I
sighed.
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