The Railway Budget was just another hunting ground for social media users. They came up with celebrity-oriented trains and recreated movie scenes on modern tracks
If a train is inspired by Aamir Khan, it perhaps would run only once a year, and passengers too would be hand-picked by the actor himself. Or if it is driven by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it will be world’s first silent train and there would no announcement at all.
And if rail affairs are helmed by Alia Bhatt, then nobody would know the name of the stations only! All these funny ideas came from a fit of imagination of social media users, minutes after railway budget was presented in Parliament.
Facebook, Twitter and satire websites were abuzz with funny articles, one-liners and images that proved more entertaining and engaging than rail minister Suresh Prabhu’s speech and promises.
A hashtag of ‘CelebTrains’ was one of the top India trends with people tweeting random interesting tweets relating to famous personalities from various fields and trains. Twitter user GRV wrote, “In Anurag Kashyap Express, the TTE will abuse you, shoot you, and throw you out of the train if you don’t have a ticket (sic).” He mentioned number of interesting tweets, “In Sanjay Dutt Express, passengers will be able to get out of the train whenever they want. #CelebTrains (sic).”
From Arvind Kejriwal to Anna Hazare, Salman Khan to Sonam Kapoor, nobody was spared on social media. User Gd Here wrote, “Kejriwal Express: 67 1st class, 3 2nd Class and 0 3rd Class (sic).” “ArvindExpress: Small journey but takes lot of U-turns, stopping in midway, starting, no tickets needed for d journey (sic),” another tweet said.
Congress was also mocked. “Congress Express — Every bogey of the train has a driver with years of experience, but the Driver in the Engine is on leave. (sic)” Ramesh Srivats wrote, “Bappi lahiri Express. If you pull chain, you’ll find another chain behind it. (sic)” “Didi express: will run over anything that’s red in color. (sic)” mentioned another tweet.
Satire website FakingNews rolled out an article how Railway Ministry is planning to revive Jab We Met on tracks. “Presenting his maiden Railway Budget, Suresh Prabhu announced that some of the night trains between Mumbai and Delhi would be organising the famous Jab We Met train sequence to entertain passengers, which in turn besides increasing coolness quotient of travelling by train, would also help Indian Railways to earn additional revenue.
Indian Railways will be hiring actors to play the characters of wealthy industrialist Aditya and talkative Geet,” read the article. The Internet was also abuzz with pictures demonstrating the modernised version of Indian Railways yet in funny manner.