Manas Garg Speaks

STD-ISD-PCO. A small shop painted in bright yellow, with a couple of booths inside, where fans seldom worked, a table with a few displays and receipt printers. Throw in a couple of telephone instruments and a friendly operator and you have a PCO.

I still remember when the idea of PCOs came in - that was around 15 years back. They were an instant hit. By the way - do you know what does PCO mean? It stands for Public Call Office. ISD is International Subscriber Dialling and STD is Subscriber Trunk Dialling. Legacy terms, eh?

Anyways, those were the days when not having a telephone at your home was the default behavior, and neighbours or landlords calling you to receive a phone call was the norm. In fact, it was a given thing - one could always share their neighbours phone number with others and mark it as PP - I dunno what this PP meant.

When you had to make calls, it was a walk to the PCO around the corner, and wait for your turn - oh - I forgot the importance of timing. Calls after 9′o clock at night were half rate and after 11′o clock were quarter rate. By the way - peak hour call rates were as high as Rs 1.80 per 6 seconds (for distances > 500 km)! Sounds like a dream right? Talk about monopoly!

Anyway, the mobile phone came, the Telecom revolution happened, and everyone got a cell phone. Visits to the PCO became rarer. PCO owners switched to selling recharge coupons for mobile phones. Good riddance!

Ever wondered how much is the power of one?

I did.

Saifai is a small village in Uttar Pradesh. There was nothing special about it, but that was only until the one in this story - Mulayam Singh took birth here.

I visited Saifai last month, and it was a treat. A high rising government hospital that beat Apollo Delhi in looks with an emergency section made only of glass panels, A state of the art medical college, a brand new university campus, hostels with amenities unheard of in the best campuses in the country!

Roads that looked like runways - even the humble Santro managed a 145 km/hr

And a village fair that was blessed with 100% rebate in Sales Tax on two wheelers and farm equipment - More than 10000 motorcycles were sold in 4 days.

The power of One.

Had he been on Orkut, I’d have become his fan.

The other day, I was returning to Kanpur from New Delhi when I saw these five goods trains standing parallel to each other just before Kanpur Central railway station. Their engines were aligned and they looked ready to race.

That is not the interesting part. This is: One of the trains was carrying steel hoops, two were full with heaps of coal, another was a petrol carrier and the carogo of last one, which could not be made out, I imagined to be cement.

I suddenly felt proud of my country - its actually racing towards development. Its there everywhere.

Oh India - I love you so.