Follow the Lines

Everyone attributes India's lack of progress to the poverty, the population, the corruption etc. And they're all wrong.
The real reason that we can't get it right is because of our skewed sense of logic.

Case in point:
I get off the train after work and go to buy a railway timetable so that I knew what quarterly pass to buy. I've never bought a timetable before, but went to (what I thought) the most logical place - the railway station counter. I was informed there, after standing in the line behind 10 people, that the timetables were only sold on the platform.

Having experienced the grumpiness of the station counter attendants before, I decided to go to the office and make absolutely sure.

It was here that I was casually informed that the railway timetables were indeed only sold on the platforms.

So in essence, the only way to get the timetable was to buy a platform ticket, then go to the bookstore on the platform, purchase the timetable (Rs 8 for anyone who's interested) and then come back to the station counter and buy the railway pass for where I wanted to go to in the first place.

Needless to say, by the time I went to the platform, got the timetable and came back, the counter that sold the pass was closed.

On the way home, the rickshaw driver didn't have any change.

Figures.