India, May 20 -- With the southwest monsoon making landfall over the Andaman Islands last week and our beloved 4 pm rain showing up in tandem - and how! - Bengaluru's brief summer is truly done. Since we can no longer moan about the heat, we must shift our baleful gaze elsewhere; this year, the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), with its interminable delays in the opening of the Yellow Line, has offered itself up for the honour.

But let us leave the metro aside for a moment, and focus instead on its predecessor, the railway. 2025 marks the centenary of the first electric train in India, which ran between Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) and Kurla in Mumbai on February 3, 1925; today, close to 97...