Travelling on a Train

Warning : This is not another story about the idiosyncrasies of Indian railways, or about the typically funny things and funny people on trains. You may not end up in fits of laughter or end up cursing the ineptitude of the railways Still it may be funny in a way.

I had to reach college in time for a 11 am class on Monday,7 Dec 2009. The last term of the “Great IIM MBA” was kicking off. I reached the station on Sunday night to catch the late night train from Cochin to Kozhikode.(Both in Kerala) The train arrived on time. It surprisingly happens invariably in these parts of the country. I quickly found the compartment and climbed on.

Indian trains have something called a 3-Tier sleeper coach where people convert the seats to berths at night and sleep at three levels(Lower,Middle,Upper).There I find an elderly gentleman sleeping on my lower berth(Which clever me had deliberately selected for ease of late night ingress and early morning egress).Slightly irritated, I had no choice but to wake him up. Why don’t people sleep on their own berths! He seemed dazed and confused and woke up his son on the upper berth. The son confessed dad couldn’t climb up and hence had  slept on my berth. Intelligent me had already thought of that , since it is a normal practise in Indian trains to swap berths with ladies and elderly people who prefer lower berths. However, there was no other empty berth in sight and hence I had discounted the scenario. It transpired that the middle berth was assigned to the elderly gentleman. The son requested me if i could sleep on the middle berth, and I agreed with a “you-must-say-thank-you-for-my-big-favour” expression. But the middle berth was occupied too. The ticketless culprit was woken up, and sent away with a condescending expression from my side. He obliged easily. I set up my bag and was about to sleep. That’s when he returned with a puzzled TTE. I handed over my ticket with a smug expression of “get done with the ritual quickly and let me sleep”. He called me aside. What the hell? Why won’t they let people sleep peacefully! He asked me what date was the ticket. The horrific thought of having booked ticket for a wrong date crossed my mind. But I soon checked and cleared that in my mind and authoritatively said “6 Dec”. He asked “What date did the train reach your station at 1.30 am?”

Well I am a meticulous and an intelligent guy who plans his activities well you know!

Realisation dawned. The ticketless travel fine amount was duly calculated and communicated.

The next sequence of events generally unfolds like this. Be it a traffic cop or a ticket examiner or millions of other such offices:

“So ab kya karna hai?” (So what do we do now?)

“Aap batao?” (You suggest..)

“Nahi..aap khud hi batao..kaise karein..dekh lo” (Well..no.. you only tell me..how do we proceed..look at the situation)

“Fine dena padega.. itna ” (You'll have to pay so and so fine) (Stresses the hugeness of the amount and the foolhardiness of paying it with his expressions) 

This goes on for a while and ends discreetly with a negotiated settlement, a quick exchange of a fifty or a hundred note. And done. The most recent example being when a shrewd lady ticket examiner happened to catch us for an inadvertent ticket offence on the "famed" Mumbai locals, and tried her best to close the deal making some money for herself. Its a different matter we did not oblige.

Something different happened here.  For one, I am thankful to him for taking me away discreetly before serving me the punchline of the story instead of letting it unfold there in front of 6 pairs of irritated peering eyes woken up by a haughty traveller who boarded in the dead of the night and was staking a claim on their seat. Now, the guy looked at his reservation list and was more concerned about where I can be accommodated. This compartment did not have any empty seats and I was sent to another TTE. I quickly apprised him of the situation and he started evaluating alternatives to accommodate me. Took me around the train, found a seat and promised to give a berth as soon as it is available. And promptly took out the receipt book and wrote out the receipt for the fine. Looked like standard procedure. There seemed to be no other way. No questions asked.

Was quite refreshing and the much maligned Indian Railways have an impressed and satisfied customer now. And maybe they have a point when they talk of high literacy rates and high Human development Index scores for the state.

This was not what I had in mind

Disclaimer : A little bit of personal ranting, may not be of much interest to readers. Except those who might be feeling the same way. And the sad thing is, I know there are many.

In the April of 2008, everything seemed to be closing up and I seemed to have reached a dead end. Those B-School admission results were pouring in and none of them favourable. It was not as if I was disgruntled with my job or frustrated or that I hated my life then. Just that I had made up my mind that I had to move on, chase “higher dreams”, and follow “higher aspirations”. And I did not have the stomach to attempt CAT once more. And in a bout of self righteous ethics, I hadn’t bothered to keep my plans private from my superiors. So no admission meant – “screwed”.

Hence it came as a pleasant surprise, more a relief when I got the news of admission to IIM-K. For, the interview was not the best and realistically my chances were miniscule. I remember I got the news when I was on the shop floor, supervising the pilot production of a new model.

If anybody had asked me then, I could not have detailed out those aspirations. Was a pretty sketchy idea. But in my mind I was sure that it would be good. How could it not be?

All the excitement and euphoria about a new thing followed, especially when it was to be a so called “IIM”. Where I’ll get to meet the best people in the country. And where everyone else is dying to get into. The first term was fun. The novelty and the new people and the challenge of something that was said to be “challenging”. The second term was fun too, infact it was great in more than one way. But it was mostly downhill thereafter. Yes, I met a lot of great people. Yes, got to learn a lot of things, academically and non academically. Yes, I have discovered more of myself. Have broadened my perspective about a lot of things, and life in general. And I have learnt a lot about working with people. Made good friends. Worked in some absolutely great teams. But undeniably the enthusiasm levels kept coming down as the terms progressed. A little bit of rough weather here and there did not help either. So much so that it has set me thinking now, at the end of term 5, with one term to go.

This was not what I had in mind when I started off in June 2008. Look at a single point metric..I' m not sure I'm "happier" now than I was then. Has to be listed down as a failure on my part because clarity of thought is one of the few things I pride myself upon.

Now the thing is I’m not used to it. I’ve never have had to think too much in life. Never have had to be bothered about many things. Or in short, never been really disgruntled or disillusioned. It’s always been a smooth straight road, with an odd speedbreaker at the max. And there have been no crossroads! The closest was when I’d failed to get into an IIT, but that was very short lived, and did not result in too much thought.

I’m hoping it’s just a teeny weeny something-induced transient phase and I get back to my non-thinking-nothing-matters-happy best soon. And I hope the next couple of months bring something good for all of us. And I get to write a great happy-teary farewell blog..the way it is supposed to be!