Imagine,
as a Monday-morning commuter, that you kept waiting for the announcer to name
your metro station... and kept waiting... and waiting... and then: you realised you had missed your stop,
rather the station !!....... It is often said that people
of Madurai are very courteous – if a visitor, were to enquire about a place –
they will go out of the way to make you understand where it is and guide you
accordingly – in some metro cities, you may get a cold state, rude response or
no response at all.
Chennai
Metro Rail is set to change the way Chennaites travel. In its first phase it covers two corridors of
a length of 45.1 kilometres (28.0 mi) of which most is underground and the remaining corridors are
elevated.Upon completion, Chennai Metro Rail would be the first metro project
in the country that will integrate other public transportation systems. The
project is expected to reduce the commuting time by 75 per cent from one end of
the city to another. The stretch between Koyambedu till Alandur is almost ready and
sooner people will be in a position to travel – albeit on a single track at
some points. …. Does it require any
exceptional intelligence to get adapted to such change ?at least in its initial
phase ??
As you
travel in MRTS plying between Chennai Beach and Velachery, in most
compartments, you will see and hear the announcement - : Destination : Chennai
Beach; next Station –ThiruMayilai in English, Hindi and Tamil. Sometimes such well-programmed too can confuse
…… for example, one may need to go to Adambakkam; would ask whether the EMU
goes there. Answer would be ‘yes’- then
you wait for the Station to come …….. the Delhi Metro graphically shows where the
train is, what the next station to be …..
At Delhi,
old-timers know Connaught Palace well – it was the former location of the
headquarters of the British Raj, developed as a showpiece of Lutyens' Delhi
with a prominent Central Business District.
It was named after H.R.H. Field Marshal The 1st Duke of Connaught and
Strathearn, construction work began in 1929 and was completed in 1933. It is one of the most expensive office
places. It is the transfer station
between Blue line on upper level and Yellow line on lower level – but the
station is named Rajiv Chowk, named after our ex-Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
Imagine,
as a Monday-morning commuter, that you kept waiting for the announcer to name
your metro station... and kept waiting... and waiting... and then: you realised you had missed your stop,
because the station name had changed.BBC reports that this actually happened last week in Uzbekistan.
Disgruntled commuters in the capital Tashkent started expressing bafflement and
anger on social media when authorities changed the names of two stops on the
Tashkent metro as part of an anti-Soviet renaming campaign.Some were confused
and said they had missed their stop, while others urged the government to
concentrate on more important things, such as improving
infrastructure."You better do something useful rather than renaming the
stations," said one Facebook user. "I agree everything should be
erased from the earth and be renamed! This way everybody will enjoy 'happy'
life!" said another ironic commenter.
Why
were the names suddenly changed? It's all about Russian influence and Soviet
history. Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov is determined to stamp out all
traces of the former Soviet Union, which his country was a part of until the
USSR's breakup in 1991.Karimov, who has ruled the country
since independence, has on several occasions criticised the "the old
repressive regime" and those who are nostalgic for the Soviet era. In
recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempts to woo Central Asian
countries into a new customs union and a defence pact have been largely snubbed
by Karimov.
The city
government of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, decided to change the name of two
metro stations because they were named after national figures who were also
pro-Soviet. The stations, named after geologist Habib Abdullaev and the poet
Hamza, were changed last week.But the changes happened without warning - the
official announcement coming a day after the switch.
Although
many vented their frustration online, others
defended the move and criticised the poet Hamza for being a sycophantic
follower of Soviet rulers. In Soviet times, the poet led an anti-veil
campaign in predominantly Muslim Uzbekistan. "It is good to remove the
poet's name, which served as a slogan in the campaign to undress our
grandmothers," commented well-known blogger Abu Muslim.The metro station
name changes were only the latest step in what appears to be a grand renaming
plan. Authorities previously changed the name of a station which had been
dedicated to World War II general SobirRahimov, and also removed a monument and
renamed a city district which bore his name. In 2011, the president signed a
law prohibiting places from being named after individuals - instead place names
must refer to their geographical position.
With regards
– S. Sampathkumar
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