As featured in the Economic Times of 13.3.2012 (Backpage). Complete transcript after the image:
Each time I sit in a domestic flight, I squirm when the Pilot begins to speak..errr…mumble senseless sentences like, “We are going to take off from Runway 8 and head in a westerly direction towards our destination, keeping an altitude of 30,000 feet.” It makes no sense to me!
I mean, is the pilot giving me a choice? You know Mr. Pilot – I don’t like Number 8. I had measles when I was 8 years old. I like 7. My birthday is on the 25th which totals to 7. So, can we use runway 7 instead? Now, if we are flying to Mumbai from Delhi, why take a ‘westerly’ direction? My nani said that all things facing the West are bad. Rock and Roll came from there. Can we take an easterly direction instead? And finally, 30,000 feet is too low. I know that Lord Shiva lives at 54,000 feet. Can we fly at his height and wave at him?
You get my point?
A Pilot of an aircraft should give relevant information to the passengers.
In this context, it was refreshing and encouraging to hear Dr. Manmohan Singh – ‘the’ silent Pilot of India finally speak up in Parliament while bashing up the BJP. Thank your Pilot PM, you really needed to end your ‘maun vrat’ (fast of silence)
Pilot PM spoke gems like “Humko hai unse wafa ki umeed, jo nahi jaante wafa kya hai (We hope for loyalty from those who do not know the meaning of the word),” quoting famous Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib & “Jo garajte hain, woh baraste nahi” (Thunder clouds do not bring showers).
Bravo! Now that the jinx is broken, this is what I hope for:
Speak little, but speak mission control
Have you been in a flight that is redirected due to bad weather or some other externality? It’s in flights like these that you need to hear the pilot speak and share sharp, periodic, critical information. I personally believe that the PM is flying this amazing airplane called India and we as passengers are still figuring out where we are headed. Our airplane faces headwinds, tailwinds, storms, lightning, rain and thunder, and I need to hear my Pilot reassure me that we are on course.
PM Pilot – I urge you to address the nation once a month. It doesn’t matter if you are a great orator or not or if you can quote poets, philosophers and kings. Just speak your classic ‘mumble tone’ and we will respect you for that. Tell us where the country is placed, how the big data points are looking and if ‘we are in a safe’ flight path. That’s all we need to hear (from you at least).
Get Cabin Crew to ‘Edutain’ us
If you have ever flown Southwest Airlines in USA, you will know what I mean by ‘edutainment’. Southwest cabin crew constantly cracks jokes while communicating the drab and dull ‘seat belt, life jacket and oxygen masks’ routine.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect the Cabin (short for Cabinet) members of the PM to ‘joke and entertain us’. But I want them to communicate with us lucidly and frequently. I want them to educate us, in an easy and relaxed manner.
Let me illustrate via an example. This was heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in Salt Lake City: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, “That was quite a bump and I know what ya’ll are thinking. I’m here to tell you it wasn’t the airline’s fault, it wasn’t the pilot’s fault, it wasn’t the flight attendants’ fault…it was the asphalt!”
If you heard the FM Chidambaram’s budget speech, he explained the reason for India’s slow economic performance was because of the sluggish Global Economy – a reason that may not be that obvious to so many Indian citizens.
In a similar vein, we need ‘In-flight’ messages about:
When do we secure our ‘seat belts’?
Can the FM assisted by his ‘cabin crew’ inform us at regular intervals about the economic weather outside and advise us when we should become prudent with our personal budgeting, savings and spending? A simple ‘caution, do not overspend’ message will be good for Indians who do not know how to interpret complicated GDP, Inflation and Stock Market charts and would rather follow the simple instructions of the knowledgeable ministers?
Where are our life jackets, our life rafts and our flotation devices?
I can wear an airline life jacket in my sleep. It’s been drilled into me. But the question is, where is my real life ‘life jacket’? Whose job is it in the government to educate its citizens about pubic safety, national threat levels and high alerts? So often I read about USA and Europe putting out ‘travel warnings’ for its citizens not to travel to certain countries for security reasons. Why can’t we have similar warnings in India?
Who tells the daughters of India how to protect themselves in public places? If Senior Citizens feel threatened, whom do they call? What do we do if the Police refuse to file an FIR? Can the government create a ‘safety instructions card’ for all its citizens and hand them over to us?
Last but not least, let us not forget that our flight is not free. As citizens, we pay crushing taxes as our airfare. And in return, we expect our hired Pilot and the Cabin Crew members to render full service!
****
Aneja Raj
Alok there are many many issues in governance in our country – having born and brought up in India and now living in America for over a decade, the three big things that I have realized we can improve upon is 1) Accessibility 2) Transparency and 3) Accountability. These are three big words, wont come easily.. but here is a simple example of how the US does it..
I remember a couple of years back around X’mas, one of my neighbor came knocking at my door in the evening. He was so pumped up and wanted to show the Holiday greeting card he had just received from none other than Obama himself from the white House. It wished the family seasons greetings! Its a small thing, but it reflects core values of a society. Point is that the Govt to people interaction is more.
Its a Its a big miss in India – the Govt operates seems to operate in a Vacuum with no contact or input from people.
Just wanted to highlight this small example. A screen grab of one of the greeting cards below.
Neerja Singh
Here in Dubai, unlike the US, the government takes great care to provide well for the basics – with zero interaction with the majority of the population, the expats. There is no transparency or accountability either, yet the UAE has one of the most peaceful, stable political environments, mainly because the rulers have an obvious interest in the country’s progression, visibility on the global scale and a name that brings in more people to live here, more entrepreneurs to set up shop, more companies to shift hub offices to a tax-free domain.
To stay in touch with affairs back home, we regularly watch Indian news channels – and while many political parties now have educated, well-spoken representatives, any debate regularly deteriorates into a finger-pointing, illogical shouting match, because despite the surface coat of veneer, the political system is the same morass it always was. In such a scenario, how can we expect to be informed by politicians who benefit most by befuddling their people, by keeping the appearance of a debate where all political parties are basically playing the same game in the same field?
We, the swelling educated middle classes, will soon need to jump in, get dirty and serve India’s urgent need for politicians who put country before all else. What you ask for is possibly utopian given the current political scenario, but when we have people with honest intent serving us, they will only be too happy to share their expertise, explain where we are headed and why certain decisions have been taken or taxes implied, offer realistic goals and flag problems before they happen, devise solutions that serve the people best even when they themselves will have to work harder to deliver it all…it calls for a virtual revamping of the system!
But I do believe we will see the overhaul happen sooner than we expect.
Amen.