Some 17 years after country non-cousins Rakesh Trivedi and Vimmi Saluja purchased one-way train tickets from Fursatganj and Pankinagar, respectively, to con city slickers as celluloid Bunty Aur Babli, fellow countrymen are still falling to swindlers. More than 2 dozen youngsters recently pulled the alarm chain when their ‘confirmed’ railway jobs, as TTEs, traffic assistants and clerks, were delayed longer than Indian trains even after they had completed the month-long training: counting the number of trains and their coaches at New Delhi station platforms during ‘office hours’.
Now, what is more alarming than the 28 men being scammed of a collective ₹2.67 crore and citizens routinely paying bribes to get a job in the world’s fastest-growing major economy is the complete absence of logical thinking and scientific reasoning among the victims even when such frauds are executed over months. No wonder N R Narayana Murthy has repeatedly voiced concern over the lack of essential skills among most Indian graduates. In this case, former army official Subbusamy, who had helped get all the parties together for no personal benefit, blew the proverbial whistle and got in the police. But how do we turn steam engines into bullet trains? Our only option is to train the minds if we wish to avoid reruns of minding the trains.
