Well, it’s about leaving my native, ever-green Nagercoil, located at the southernmost tip of India, a place of immense natural beauty. Surrounded by the Western Ghats, it boasts lush green landscapes and serene backwaters. As I gazed out of the clean, big glass window of the new orange and grey Vande Bharat train, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia for the verdant hills and tranquil surroundings of my hometown. The sight of the lush greenery slipping away made me realize how much I would miss the serene beauty of Nagercoil and how blessed I am to be born there.
A Fresh Journey on the Orange Vande Bharat Express
After some busy days of working only from my home, this seemed to be a nice train journey after a while with my wife last Saturday. You know, I enjoyed a meal from Indian Railways for the first time. The food was decent, though the service was not quite up to the mark. The host should speak the local language, especially Tamil, but I appreciate it for what it is. We were traveling on this new Vande Bharat Express, now sporting an orange and grey color scheme instead of the original blue and white. Some people don’t like the new colors, but I think it’s okay; the color combo is not bad unless they didn’t mean it to influence politically.
After all the lush scenery had gone, the train host greeted us with some water bottles and snacks, which were part of the ₹200 additional charge for the non-veg meal package. For a train that runs for 8-9 hours, it usually doesn’t have an in-built pantry, but it has a fridge, freezer, and oven to heat the food if required. It even has a modular-based storage unit and a hot water boiler for each compartment.
The Vande Bharat Express reached a maximum speed of 110 kmph during my journey, although it has the capacity to go up to 160 kmph. The ride was meant to be smooth and gentle, so it doesn’t exceed beyond 110 kmph. The CC class experience was quite good, offering a decent level of comfort. However, the hygiene of the staff could use some improvement. The staff might be hosting continuously for 9 hours from Chennai to Nagercoil, and with some 45 minutes of break or so, the train traveled back from Nagercoil to Chennai. I felt we needed a changeover or the staff needed to refresh to greet with good odor to welcome the passengers, similar to how air hosts do. Well, for smoking, anyone who is smoking inside the train toilet should be punished and warned. There should be a guard to control such areas, even though the train is filled with many CCTV cameras. I wonder what happened to the smoke sensor in the toilet.
Safety alerts for door closures were another area that needs serious improvement. When the door is about to close at the station, the train should announce it and intimate the non-passengers. In a country like India, non-passengers come to send off passengers, so they have to get out of the train before it leaves the station. Usually, in metro trains, they have good announcements, but still, the next stop is only 5 km away, whereas here, 100 km is not so imaginable for a costly mistake. The system should avoid such mistakes as humans are prone to make errors. We had an incident where two innocent girls were victims of these unalerting or not-so-alerting automatic doors. Maybe we need to have a flag or button before the train starts. Well, those two poor souls traveled from Madurai to Dindigul because of the automatic door.
When the train reached Dindigul junction, food arrived! Yummm yumm tummm tumm! The non-veg meal served on the Vande Bharat Express was quite decent. It included two roti with dhal, ghee rice, a nice cup of curd, well-cooked chicken curry, and a vegetable dish with kesari as a dessert. The meal was served with sanitizer and a wet tissue in a tray, much like an airplane meal. The flavors were good, though not exceptional, and the portion size was adequate for a train meal. It was a pleasant surprise to have a hot meal on board.
You know this train has free WiFi. The WiFi entertainment system on the train was somewhat disappointing. It operated on a local network with limited content, mostly about Indian Railways, and a few movies and songs—hardly more than 13 videos¹. They could add some 100 to 1000s of movies and millions of songs so that users can have a wide variety of options.
With no infotainment content and poor 5G signal, I was forced to either read or write. After reading for a while, a spark came to me to write about current affairs—specifically, this train experience and the new Yoga laptop we got, which is helping us to publish this.
My Lenovo Laptop Experience
I am drafting this blog on my new Lenovo Yoga laptop while sitting near the aisle (yes, I switched sides), watching kids crying and students from NIT Trichy talking all about food on Swiggy to order after they got tempted by our Railway Food. Amidst this, I am focusing on writing. It’s the first draft on the new laptop, and I want to mention laptops with Copilot and AI. Do you know about the Aura Edition? The Aura edition adds a big difference to AI in computing with its Intel processor and much more. As I mentioned before, I shared my previous MacBook Air with my wife. Despite being an Apple fan, she doesn’t feel comfortable using it. On the other hand, I work with Lenovo, and suggesting anything other than a Lenovo to her feels like a grave mistake (kidding, just my personal choice, of course 😄).
Lenovo’s Yoga series is incredibly versatile. As a laptop, it does its job well, but it can also be used creatively as a tablet or a book reader. For those who like to draw with a pen, it offers an iPad-like experience with its touch pen. Plus, as a Lenovo employee, I get a 25% discount on purchases. My wife was thrilled with the laptop, which saved us around ₹25,000. It’s a pretty decent deal—good and affordable. Although I missed out on the Aura edition because the latest products often arrive late in Indian stores, what I bought solved my purpose better than my old MacBook Air 😊. And let’s not forget, Lenovo Yoga laptops can do a 360-degree flip and act as a 2-in-1 laptop—take that, Mac! 😄
I’m not just an Apple fan; I’m also a big fan of ThinkPads when it comes to Windows laptops. Their sturdy build, space-grade quality, and durability have always impressed me. Even ThinkPad has a Yoga series; my favorite would be a laptop as slim as the X1 Carbon that does all the flip jobs with a Think brand pen built-in and a 5G eSIM option. Enough about Lenovo.
Well, today I re-edited my draft and found today is a great day to publish this since it’s a great day to be. Yes!
Happy birthday to me! Completing this draft today feels like a great start to my 34th year.
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