Andhra Pradesh

Try ‘139’

Frequent callers of 139, the all India railway enquiry number, are these days being treated to a new style of greeting and answering from the other end. Until now, whoever called local numbers like 2577775 or 131 got the usual business-like and straight answer to their questions. But, try calling 139 and you will be surprised to hear the person from the other end asking for your name before giving the information you have asked for.

You may wonder where is the need for you to tell your name for seeking a simple information about trains available to a destination and the like. Well, it may just be one of the ingredients in the major corporate makeover Laluji is giving to the railways. While all this is welcome, the only irritant is that you will have to tell the call centre person that you are calling from Vijayawada and seeking information about the trains leaving from or passing through the station. For sure, this is a small disadvantage of having a centralised call centre away from the city.

Only those with the quickest of repartee can shine in this ‘dog-eat-dog’ world. Television channels that approached former Mayor Tadi Sakuntala for her response to CPI State secretary K. Narayana’s indirect comparison of her to a dog that does not shed its old habits, by way of recitation of the famous Telugu poem from Sumathi Sathakam, got a quick repartee.

While Mr. Narayana tried to drive home the point that an undeserving person does not shed original habits even if he or she was vested with bigger responsibilities, Ms. Sakuntala cryptically remarked: “He must have said so because I have always treated him like my elder brother and called him ‘annayya’.” Well, no prizes for guessing what she wanted to convey.

Emphasising the need for girls to mould themselves into different roles to be able to multi-task in the days ahead, Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) Chigurupati Varaprasad the other day urged the fairer sex to gear up for a shoulder-to-shoulder walk with their spouse. It was the investiture function of Sri Durga Malleswara Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala.

“In the US, there is no demarcation of roles between spouses. Both the partners share work, right from baby-sitting to cooking to doing other household chores. Some partners even follow an unwritten law that says whoever earns more, gets to do less work. And all of you are headed for a similar situation,” he said, prompting the girls to break into a huge round of applause. “Look at their joy at the evil thought of shirking household work and dumping it on to their hapless spouses,” he chortled, prompting the girls to visualise the ‘blissful’ prospects awaiting them.

Consistency and unrelenting efforts seem to be the Telugu Desam Party’s strategy as far as taking on the ruling Congress is concerned. While the entire nation is busy debating the pros and cons of Indo-US nuclear deal, the TDP leaders and cadres here are on a different mission.

They have been holding dharnas and demonstrations at one electric sub-station or the other to register their protest against what they describe as the government’s failure on the power supply front. Though their voices are drowned in the din following increased suspense over the developments at the national level, the local TDP rank and file continue their attack on the State government by holding dharnas. One leader jocularly said that their protest programmes were bound to get full attention, thanks to power cuts that are only increasing by the day.

(K. Srimali, G.V. Ramana Rao, P. Sujatha Varma and G. Ravikiran in Vijayawada)

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