Random Thoughts - freak '()' nomics - I

Disclaimer : purely imaginary. No guarantee for accuracy of predictions.

Think is there any connection between the Software Boom in India and the Indian rail industry becoming one of the most profitable organizations ? There is. Example - goto IRCTC and try booking a chennai-mail ticket from Bangalore to Chennai one month ahead for a weekend. Consider urself lucky if you get a reserved berth. I can bet, most of this crowd is the young softies who hail from chennai and work at blr types. The more software industry grows, the more employed youth become, the more they travel outside their home place for jobs implies the more they Travel.

Conclusion - "Software boom directly proportional to Indian railways boom."

In any case, I am the sort of person who travels to/fro blr/chennai almost every week. Some people call it Nostalgic, i call it the smell of good food.
On the day of return I usually take the famous electric train to come to Central station from my home. Last week on a similar train journey, i got a chance to sit near the window and watch outside (It is very hard indeed to get a seat).

I was seeing the change. My association with the Train journey goes way long back to 1994. Starting from my school days to college and now work, the train journey has become a inseparable part of my life. I donno whether Nayanthara really enjoyed the rain when she looked out of the small car window (REF : Yaaradi nee mohini), but stand in the foot board of a running train on a windy(rainy) day, i can swear that it will be the most memorable journey ever. Ofcourse, you want the incident to be memorable and not to become a memory, so be cautious when you stand in the foot board.

On a crowded day, which btw is almost everyday, you will be able to see all the vagaries of life in a running train. Blind people selling lottery tickets, singing old songs, a family of 8 sitting in a berth for 4, students completing their homework, tution notes before school, middle aged people carrying lunch boxes and rushing to offices and many more. Nothing much had changed last week, only that most of the young people who usually stand outside the train, literally, are now standing inside listening to IPOD :). Here you go, my second correlation..

"With the IPOD boom, many young people have started buying IPOD and listening to songs, which means they no longer are interested in standing in the foot board and as a result of which the number of people who die because of foot board travel injuries have decreased".

Conclusion - IPOD boom is inversely proportional to No of Train journey deaths.

It is not only small children, but even adults, prefer to sit near the window. No one knows really why, but thats the way it is. Maybe calculate the relative velocity of the passing train or enjoy the fast moving view of buildings and the surroundings. One thing i really noticed was the number of open spaces. The number did not go down that much, but the open spaces were indeed OPEN, rather empty, which is very surprising. Those days, i never saw a ground that was empty. It was always occupied by boys playing cricket. A single ground was usually shared with atleast 3 teams. One team playing with a cricket ball, one team playing with a tennis ball and one team not really playing but practicing. Forget grounds, even the apartment car parking areas were usually mini cricket grounds. But now i was wondering whats stopping the young boys from occupying these grounds.. The person next to me was talking about the latest IPL matches and the genral player bashings. The thought suddenly stuck me, Kids who are usually passionate about playing cricket will never miss watching cricket. Those days the number of matches relayed were low, so lots of playing and some watching. But these days it is the reverse. As a result of which more kids are now glued to TV sets and computers instead of playing cricket which means the play grounds are now empty, which makes life easier for people who want to buy houses and have children as they no longer look for playgrounds,open spaces for their child and because of the demand the real estate prices go up.

Conclusion : IPL Matches are causing the rocketing real estate prices to shoot up even more

--to be continued....