Last week, two people were killed and some 15 injured in a stampede—the Government called it a ‘trip-up’—at New Delhi railway station, caused by last minute platform changes. Most newspapers attributed the tragedy to callous planning by Indian Railways. A Times Of India op-ed called it ‘a reflection of the state of affairs in Indian Railways’. But why blame only the Railways? We have a history of running over each other in all sorts of places, on all sorts of occasions. Indeed, a stampede is almost an Indian ritual. It’s about time we accept a basic truth about ourselves: we are as undisciplined and myopic as a herd of wild buffaloes.

A cowboy must manoeuvre his herd in a way that prevents them from running over a cliff or into a river. We are no different. No Kumbh Mela occurs without sacrificing a few devotees to a stampede. Two years ago, 147 people died at Chamunda Devi temple in Jodhpur in an early morning stampede when a wall regulating the queue fell, and people tried to jump the line through the empty space created. In this country, we’ve seen temple stampedes, stampedes during distribution of freebies, during recruitment drives, even stampedes caused by rumours. In less than a decade, some 750 lives have been lost in temple stampedes alone.

And it couldn’t possibly just be the fact that we coexist with a billion others in this country. A few years ago, at Zurich airport, I saw Indian travellers surround airline staff at the departing gate for a flight, refusing to obey instructions to stand in a single file and allow old people to go first. Unlike on local trains, boarding a plane isn’t a fight for survival: the passenger is assured a seat, a meal, free booze, newspapers, and more. But we still jump the queue.

The unfortunate, but inevitable, consequence of this tendency to shove is tragedy. Even schoolchildren have no idea how to walk in a line. Last year, five Delhi schoolgirls lost their lives when students were asked to go down a narrow staircase during heavy rain. Someone spread a rumour that touching the walls would cause electrocution, and all hell broke loose. Contrast that with what happened during 9/11. A survivor, who was in tower two when the plane hit tower one, attributes his escape to a prompt fire drill-like evacuation. Although people were getting impatient, everyone was respectful and did the right things on the way down, he said, even before the second plane hit tower two.

Late last week, Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee called for an inquiry into this latest incident. What we really need to learn is walking in a single file.

If you’re one of those people who are wont to look at the night-time sky suspiciously, wearily eyeing everything up there as a possible UFO, read tis very carefully. When Boeing begins test flights of its new Phantom Ray super spy unmanned plane from December, don’t mistake it for a UFO come to take you back to the mother ship. This pilotless machine can cruise at 988 kmph, has a wingspan of 50 ft and is 36 ft long, and looks a bit like the stealth plane in the Eddie Murphy, Owen Wilson flick I Spy. The Phantom Ray can’t be tracked by radar; and has an engine housed inside the body to reduce its heat signature. The plane is a prototype made for the American air force; though Boeing insists that it will be the test bed for their new technologies.

In Kerala, film actors are finally behaving heroic in real life. The Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (Amma) has welcomed producers’ decision to impose a 25 per cent cut on the remuneration of stars who charge more than Rs 3 lakh a film. According to sources in the Malayalam film industry, this move is mostly targeted at superstars Mohan Lal and Mammootty, who charge about Rs 1 crore per film. The Kerala Film Producers Association (KFPA) also has a few other instructions for the state’s actors: be present at any given shooting location by 7 am each day to avoid wastage of time; pay for your own personal assistants.

Tamil Nadu is holding out a carrot to entice residents of the state to ignore caste, community and religious considerations. According to a recent state government decision, people who brave societal considerations of caste and community to enter into marriage will be awarded for their conscientiousness with speedy allocation of ration cards. According to Food and Civil Supplies Minister EV Velu, a caste-no-bar couple only have to produce a marriage certificate to get a ration card within a month of application. Couples can buy rice, wheat, sugar and pulses at throwaway prices from PDS (Public Distribution System) stalls across the state with the card for as little as Re 1 per kg. Till now, it was a Herculean task for a newly-wed couple to obtain a new ration card in the state. Both husband and wife were required to obtain a No Objection Certificate from their respective district supply offices, given on the basis of consent letters from the couple’s family. In cases of children marrying outside the community, parents often refused to provide consent forms. Now, at least they will have food security.

Babus at Kolkata’s Writers’ Building, the state secretariat, went on a wildcat strike inside the imposing building on Monday. Their demand: installation of air conditioners in all offices located on the top (third) floor of the British-era structure. Four hundred PWD officers on this floor started agitating soon after reporting for work on Monday. It was so hot that they were soon joined by employees of the pensions, prisons, transport and information & culture departments, whose offices are also on this floor that, naturally, bears the brunt of the scorching summer heat. The agitation reached a feverish pitch after lunchtime, forcing PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami to come out of his air-conditioned chamber. Goswami took a round of the offices on the third floor and agreed with the babus that it was too hot to work. And with the civic polls, which are keeping the Left Front on tenterhooks, just around the corner, Goswami was quick to promise installation of split ACs in all third floor offices soon. Since employees below the rank of deputy secretary aren’t entitled to work in air-conditioned environs, Goswami said he’d request the state cabinet to make a special exemption for lower and mid-level babus.