Meine Socha: The Two Words That Derail Every Ambitious Project
A single train journey. 26 stops. A milkman pulling the emergency chain. And a lesson that 25 years inside the Indian government couldn't teach me.
Ek train journey ne mujhe do cheezein sikhayi.
Pehli. Sabka Dilli alag hai. You think the train is going to Delhi. But the milkman sitting inside wants to get off at a bridge near his village. The attendant wants to honour humanity. A family wants to reunite with their elderly member who couldn’t board in time. Everyone’s Delhi is different. The train is the same.
Doosri. Two words. “Meine socha.” I thought so. These two words sound innocent enough. But in my 25 years of service, these two words have derailed more ambitious projects than corruption, red tape, and budget cuts combined.
Meine socha. I calculated. I figured. I thought it through.
This is the private calculation. And every private calculation is a chain-pull.
And the very first chain-pull? I pulled it myself.
The Booking
I needed to get my family from our hometown to Delhi. Simple problem. Three trains run the route. Two had no confirmed reservations available. One did.
The available train departed at 8 PM and arrived in Delhi at 11:30 AM the next day. The other two arrived at 4 AM and 5 AM respectively. Had I applied through the VIP quota or the headquarters quota, there was a chance my reservation on one of the faster trains would have been confirmed. But there was no certainty. It might come through. It might not.
So I did what millions of decision-makers do every single day.
I chose certainty over quality.
Confirmed ticket in hand, I immediately ran my private calculation. “Meine socha,” the train arrives at 11:30. It’s winter. Mornings are late anyway. My family will get more sleep. I’ll wake up early and read my books on the train. My driver won’t have to suffer a 4 AM pickup. 11:30 is civilised. Comfortable. Logical.
Three justifications. Each perfectly reasonable. Each constructed after the decision, not before it.
This is how ambitious projects are planned. Your board sits at the table. The first question is never “what’s the best way to do this?” The first question is “what are our constraints?” Time. Money. Tenure. Will. Once you anchor on constraints rather than opportunity, the constraints set the tone for every future decision.
For me, the confirmed ticket was the constraint. And even though there was a strong case against the train, I filled the gap with justifications that favoured the constraint. I dressed up a compromise as a strategy. I gave jugaad the language of planning.
The decision was sealed.
The 26 Stops
The next morning, I wanted to figure out where I could grab a cup of chai during the journey. I was checking the mobile app for station timings. Gwalior? Agra? Something in between?
That’s when I saw it. Number of stops: 26.
A typical train on this route stops four or five times in a 15-hour journey. This train stopped 26 times. At places whose names I had never heard. I even checked whether the train was taking a detour, some roundabout route. It wasn’t. It was the same track. It just stopped. Everywhere.
The train was called the Mahakaushal Express. “Express” was right there in the name. But a train that stops 26 times is an express the way a 200-page file noting is “fast-tracked.”
I had already booked the ticket. Cancelling meant admitting the mistake. Going back to the headquarters quota meant effort, uncertainty, a little discomfort.
So I did what every project sponsor does when the scope document reveals an uncomfortable truth.
I built a narrative.
“We haven’t travelled by train in so long,” I told my family that morning. “I’ve booked a train where we can enjoy the journey. All three of us together. It’ll be fun.”
My child got excited. “Papa, that’s a great idea! We’ll enjoy the train journey!”
The narrative worked. My family, who were less aware of the 26 stops, accepted the story. I was the dominant player. I set the frame. I controlled the information.
And in that moment, the problem of having booked the wrong train disappeared. Not because the problem was solved. Because the story was better.
Every project I have seen struggle has this moment. The scope is wrong. The timeline is wrong. The approach is wrong. And someone senior, someone who made the original call, constructs a narrative that makes the wrong decision sound like the right one. The team accepts it. The file moves forward. The train leaves the station.
With 26 stops baked in.
Night: The Buffer Zone
The train departed half an hour late. But it was 8 PM. Dark outside. We’d packed our food. The cat was with us. We played, we ate, we laughed. Nobody noticed the stoppages. In the darkness, every stop was invisible.
Night is the buffer zone of bad planning. When you can’t see the delays, you don’t feel them.
I expected my family to sleep late. By 9:30, they’d wake up, freshen up, and by 11:30 we’d arrive. A clean landing. The narrative would hold.
But something went wrong. Everyone woke up early. The buffer was gone.
By then, I’d already checked the app. The train was running an hour and a half late. I didn’t tell my family.
Another private calculation. “Meine socha, why spoil their mood?”
The silence was also a decision. And it was also a chain-pull. Not every chain-pull is loud. Some are just the sound of someone choosing not to speak. “Chuppi ka hisaab.” The calculation of silence. In projects, this happens in quarterly reviews. The deviation is known. The delay is real. But someone calculates that today is not the day to raise it. “Meine socha, let’s wait for the next review.”
The delay doesn’t disappear. It compounds.
Daylight: The Chain-Pullers
Morning broke. Now my family could see what the night had hidden. The train was stopping. Constantly. At every small station. At every signal. It was a passenger train wearing the uniform of an express.
I scrambled. “Look at the train compartments. Let’s play cards. Look outside at the fields.” Anything to maintain the narrative. Anything to keep the “enjoy the journey” story alive.
Then Agra approached. I went to the gate, eager for fresh air and a pyali of chai, the old-fashioned kind, on a railway platform.
But ten minutes before the station, the train stopped. Near a bridge. No platform. No station.
Chain pulled.
I watched people climbing down from the train onto the tracks. I called out to one of them. A man carrying milk cans.
“Bhai, what happened? Why did the train stop?”
He looked at me as if I’d asked the most obvious question in the world.
“Chain pull ki hai.”
“Why?”
“Sir, agar hum Agra mein utarenge toh bahut door chalna padega. Humara doodh bechne ka jo area hai, woh iss bridge ke paas hai. Yehi se utar jaana convenient hai.”
Papi pet ka sawal hai. A man’s livelihood. The road was right there. Why walk all the way from the station entrance when the bridge was closer?
Perfectly rational for him. A private calculation, fully resolved. “Meine socha, this makes sense.” And it did make sense. For him. Not for two hundred passengers sitting in a halted train.
Before I could say anything, the milkman and his companions were gone. Vanished down the embankment. The train lurched forward.
I reached Agra. Got my chai. The old-fashioned pyali. I sipped it standing on the platform, watching the world move slowly. For a moment, the chain-pull faded. The chai was good. The morning air was cool. I forgot my frustration.
This is what happens in projects too. A small pleasure, a minor win, a successful meeting, and we forget the larger derailment. The chai becomes a substitute for the destination.
I hurried back to my compartment as the signal changed. The train moved. The station slid past the window.
Then it stopped again.
This time, a family had boarded but one of their elderly members couldn’t make it in time. Someone pulled the chain so the old person could catch up and board.
I looked at the AC compartment attendant. “Bhai, this isn’t right. The train keeps getting delayed.”
His answer was firm. Delivered like a moral verdict.
“Sahab, insaaniyat bhi koi cheez hai. Unke bachche chhoot jaate, unka parivaar chhoot jaata, toh kya achha lagta aapko?”
Humanity comes first.
I went silent. What do you say to that? He was right. In his frame, completely, unimpeachably right. The family needed to be together. The old person needed to board. Humanity demanded the chain-pull.
But the train was now even further from Delhi. And nobody was counting the cumulative cost.
When the Train Forgot Delhi
After that, the chain-pulls continued. Six, maybe seven times that morning. Each one for a different reason. Each one perfectly justified by the person who pulled it.
I stopped asking why. I stopped checking the app. I stopped calculating the delay.
A strange thing happened. I accepted it. This is just how this train works. This is its nature. This is its speed. The 26 scheduled stops had now become 30, maybe 32, with unscheduled ones thrown in. And I, who had started the journey checking timings and tracking progress, had surrendered to the drift.
The train kept inching towards the next station out of twenty-six, stopping for each chain-pull midway. As if it had forgotten that the ultimate destination was Delhi. It was moving as if it was jostling just for the next station only.
When I looked at my family, they were staring at me with a mix of irritation and resignation. “Papa, why does this train keep stopping?” I had no answer. The “enjoy the journey” narrative had collapsed under its own weight.
The train arrived in Delhi two and a half hours late. Not because of a mechanical failure. Not because of a natural disaster. Not because of any external emergency. It arrived late because the people inside it, each running their own private calculation, each fully convinced of their own logic, pulled the chain. Again and again and again.
The File That Connected Everything
Back at the office, I opened a project file. Thick. Old. The kind that has been travelling between desks for years.
The noting on the current page recommended that the matter be referred to the legal council. The page before that suggested forming a committee. The one before that advised consulting another division.
Twenty-six stops.
I flipped through the earlier pages. Every single noting was written by someone with perfectly good intentions. Each one suggested a referral, an additional consultation, an extra step. Each one was individually justified.
“Meine socha, this needs legal vetting.”
“Meine socha, the finance wing should be consulted.”
“Meine socha, let’s get a wider perspective.”
And just like the milkman, just like the attendant, just like every person who pulled the chain on that train, each noting officer was solving their own problem. Running a private calculation. Issuing themselves a mental NOC, a self-issued No Objection Certificate that nobody asked for but everyone must now live with.
“Ek aadmi ki cabinet.” A one-person cabinet meeting. Agenda: one. Member: one. Decision: one. Chain-pull: one.
The project had started with a clear destination. But somewhere along the way, the destination was forgotten. The people working on it were no longer asking “does this serve the final goal?” They were asking “what did I do today?” They celebrated small actions, small notings, small referrals, the way I celebrated my chai at Agra station. And the large goal, the Delhi of the project, receded into fog.
The Deeper Diagnosis
That train journey taught me something I had missed for years.
I had been blaming the chain-pullers. The milkman. The attendant. The noting officers. The people who add one more committee, one more reference, one more review.
But the train was compromised before the first chain was ever pulled.
I chose it based on constraints, not opportunity.
Had I started with “what’s the fastest train on this route?” and then negotiated with the constraints, perhaps the waitlist would have cleared. Perhaps the headquarters quota would have come through. A little discomfort. A little extra effort. A little mehnat.
But I started with what was easy and available. Confirmed ticket. Convenient timing. No effort required. And then I built a story to justify it.
Every delayed project I’ve seen in 25 years has the same origin story. Someone sat at the table and said: “We have funds only for this year, so scope the project accordingly.” Or: “My tenure ends in eighteen months, so the deliverable must fit within that.” Or: “This vendor is already empanelled, so let’s not go through a fresh process.”
Constraints became the anchor. Opportunity was never the starting point.
And once you plan from constraints, you get 26 stops baked into the route. You get a passenger train masquerading as an express. The chain-pullers don’t create the problem. They just make a weak plan unrecoverable.
Three Shifts
Since that journey, I’ve changed three things about how I plan and execute.
First, I anchor on opportunity and add constraints later. I don’t start with what’s available anymore. I start with what’s best. The fastest train with five stops forgives a lot. A slow train with 26 stops forgives nothing. If the best option means a waitlist, I wait. If it means extra effort, I make the effort. That slight discomfort is worth it. Because a project conceived at full speed, with minimum essential stops, has a fighting chance even when the inevitable chain-pulls come.
Second, I guard against unscheduled stops. Every “meine socha” is a potential chain-pull until proven otherwise. When someone on my team says they want to add a reference, a consultation, a committee review, I ask one question: “Does this serve Delhi, or does this serve the next station?” I negotiate with chain-pullers now. I counter their private calculations with the shared scope document. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. But the negotiation itself changes the culture. Because people start pausing before they pull. They start asking themselves whether their internal committee meeting of one has considered the two hundred passengers on the train.
Third, I stop justifying bad decisions. Every project that started with 26 stops baked in, every decision anchored on “we have funds only this year” or “my tenure ends soon,” needs a mid-course correction. Not a post-mortem. A mid-course correction. The most expensive chain-pull is the one nobody examines. The story you built on day one to protect a decision you knew was compromised.
Exactly as I built the story about “enjoying the journey.”
Sabka Dilli Alag Hai
The train was one. The journey was shared. But everyone’s Delhi was different.
For the milkman, Delhi was the bridge near his village. For the attendant, Delhi was humanity. For the family that pulled the chain, Delhi was togetherness. For the noting officer in my office, Delhi is the satisfaction of having added his stamp to the file.
None of them shared the project’s Delhi. And none of them pulled the chain with malicious intent.
That’s the cruelty of it.
The problem isn’t that people are sabotaging your project. The problem is that they’re serving their own version of the destination with full conviction. Their “meine socha” is internally consistent. Their logic is sound within their frame. Their intention is sincere.
But the train is two and a half hours late. And nobody is counting the cumulative cost.
The Two Words That Now Silence My Office
When I came back from that journey, I told my team the story. The milkman. The attendant. The chai at Agra. The file with 26 notings.
Now, when someone in my office begins a sentence with “meine socha,” the room gets quiet. Not because the phrase is wrong. But because we’ve all learned to ask what comes next.
A private calculation? Or a shared commitment to the destination?
An internal NOC issued to oneself? Or a genuine assessment of whether this action serves the project’s Delhi?
My family still teases me about that journey. “Papa’s memory-making express,” my child calls it. They aren’t wrong. It did make a memory. Just not the kind I planned.
And the file? The one that took four years? It started exactly like my train booking. Someone chose the project scope based on what was available, not what was needed. Then built a narrative to justify it. Then the chain-pulls came. Legal. Committee. Division. Consultation. Each sincere. Each adding a station. Until the project forgot its destination and started jostling for the next station only.
Nobody pulled the chain with bad intent.
That’s always the cruelty of it.
Discipline is clarity in motion. Courage compounds when you say no to chain-pulls. Small steps, savage focus.
Next time you plan a project, ask yourself: did I choose the fastest train and then negotiate with constraints? Or did I take the confirmed ticket with 26 stops and build a story about enjoying the journey?
He is Joint Secretary with over 25 years in Indian governance, digital transformation, and parliamentary systems. He writes at Stories from Backyard about influence, results delivery, and real lessons from inside the system.
If “meine socha” has ever derailed something you were part of, share your story in the comments. I read every one.