India, Aug. 9 -- By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

Last fortnight I had to travel to Chennai for a medical conference and I chose to go by the Vande Bharat train. I did this for two reasons.

Firstly, although there is a flight facility to travel between Mysuru and Chennai and back, with the actual flight time between the two cities being just 90 minutes, the timings did not quite suit my requirements. And, to take a more conveniently timed flight from Bengaluru to Chennai, with the mandatory early reporting and the travel time to Bengaluru, this journey too takes far more time than the total of six-and-a-half hours the train journey takes.

If you also take into account the very real possibility of being held up in a traffic jam somewhere on ...