We traveled by the Rajdhani Express recently from New Delhi to Bangalore (and came back by the Karnataka Express Train, both AC III coaches. So the journey must be comparable, Right? Well, hear me out and then decide for yourself.

There is a big advantage of traveling by the Rajdhani Express to Bangalore, it is a faster train than Karnataka Express. It takes 36 hours to reach Bangalore by Rajdhani and 42 by Karnataka Express.

The tickets of the Rajdhani Express are a bit more expensive but assume that the difference really does not matter to you.

Now listen to the sound track in the video above (after two minutes you can listen to a small sample of the tunes they keep playing on the public address system of the train).

• How do you find the welcome after boarding the Rajdhani Express train? That cacophony continues for a good ten minutes when you board the train and it can send small children into a crying frenzy!
• They wake you up between 6.00 and 7.00 am in the morning to drink tea! Don't get me wrong, I live on tea but at 6.00 am I like only one thing and that is sleep!
• The sample song that you listened to (what you did not listen to the soundtrack of the video? Do that first before you read any further). They play it at all the hours of day and night. One of the things I am looking forward on a 36 hour journey is to catch up on sleep! It is impossible with the music blaring at all hours at a volume over which I have no control.
• It might have made sense to play music (for a limited period) in an era when music players were not in every device you could think of! Now if I wish to listen to a song I can with my mobile phone and so can almost everyone that is the target market of the Rajdhani Express!
• They have been playing the same songs since last 20 years or so it feels.
• We realized this time that there is a person in the pantry whose job is to play the songs. You can request him to play it down but whether he will comply and for how long is any body's guess.
• The sound system is pathetic. It just drives you nuts with the repetitive music in screeching tones at all hours. I wonder if there is someone who likes to listen to it, but then I am sure the Indian Railway is not going to conduct a customer satisfaction survey anytime soon.

Now would you blame me if I wish to avoid the Rajdhani Express train the next time around even though if it means sitting for longer in the Karnataka Express but mercifully without a public address system?