Of thought-trains and process-chains
Back in the day, there was a railway station in a small village called Buxar in Bihar. People would take trains all over the country from that station, more people would come and drop them, see them off. Most bought platform tickets while seeing people off. Then one day, a guy couldn’t buy a platform ticket in a hurry. While exiting the station, he told the checker that he had forgotten, and the checker, reasonable man that he was, let this guy go, with a promise to not lapse another time. “How much difference can a 5p ticket actually make?”, the guy thought. The next time, he again forgot, and got away. The word spread. Soon, many people were not buying tickets. They were flouting other rules as well, like crossing the tracks on foot, and not on the bridge. Bringing 2 wheelers to the platform. And so on. Today, if you enter the station, and go to buy a platform ticket, people laugh at you for not having enough sense that a ticket is not required. Isn’t that how, over the years, ...