Today I went to see Azadi Express at Bangalore Cantonment Railway Station (Platform Number 3). The train is on an All India journey and Bangalore will be its coordinates till 27th January i.e. tomorrow. I had read many write ups that this 12 coach train provides visual treat depicting about First War of Independence 1857, Freedom Movement, Gandhian Era and progress of India since independence.

For the general public, there is one more struggle associated with this event i.e. to get on board the train one has to stand in a queue 4-5 times the actual length of the train for more than 3 hours. Adding to frustration is that many people don’t follow queue discipline by intruding at the places they wish and volunteers just ignore it.

After getting on board the things are not so great. The volunteers force us to surf through the depictions, as a result one can’t read or spend time on the stuffs. The experience is similar to that of Tirumala Temple where after standing in the queue for hours, one can’t have a proper darshan for a minute.

Other Observations
– It was crowded event on republic day, but there was not even a basic level of security check. This is heights of complacency, especially after Bangalore being on terror radar in recent times.
– In the last coach there were pictures of Indian sporting icons such as Sachin, Sania, Vishwanathan Anand, Dhoni and Yuvraj. But the pictures of Kumble, Dravid and Ganguly were missing, are they not part of India’s progress ?