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.