Hi.Hello.How are you. How is the IRCTC doing these days?
Till a few months ago, I was a happy go lucky college
student in one of the most foreknown engineering universities in Chennai. My
extreme level of concern would be badly written semester paper and its impending
results- spelling doom all over it. Then campus recruitments happened. God
pulled a few strings and I landed a plum job in the city of the Youth –
Bangalore.
This was six months back.
Today I have become a seasoned traveller of the Indian
trains. I book tickets beforehand on the internet , I even book tickets through
tatkal which is a God-given boon for last minute travellers. Bangalore Mail,
Bangalore Express, Guwahati Express or the Kaveri Express, you name it and I
would have travelled in it.
And I’m proud of you. Seriously. I know everyone mocks the
IRCTC when the server crashes and comes up after 3 hours. I know the site leads
us to believe that we have a confirmed ticket only for it to error out in the
very end. I know all this. But still, I’m proud.
Atleast I was , until today.
Today I came home for Diwali to spend some time with my
family. Today basically half of Bangalore had moved to various parts of the
country to be with their families. I prefer the train because I get a good
night’s sleep usually. But bad luck was that my usual train Bangalore Mail
ticket was on the Waitling list so I had to board the Guwahati Express.
I do not know how to describe the sight before me when the
train was standing at the platform. There were people overflowing (the closest I
could come to describing it) out of each boogie. It was a whole ten minutes
before I realized that my berth was in one of the overcrowded boogies. There
were atleast 10 people at the entrance of the carriage and I wouldn’t have been
surprised if some had occupied the toilets too. People were already sleeping on
the floor. The stench was unbearable. I walked in and past the men thinking
that the Train Ticket Inspector will remove the passengers without valid
tickets. To my relief, I had an upper berth. I quickly climbed on to it while
twenty eyes hawked on like a feast for sore eyes. There couldn’t have been
anything more embarrassing. Look down, and see the same twenty eyes looking up
right at you. Again I told myself that probably the TTR will move them all out
to unreserved compartments. So I waited.
Forget a proper night’s sleep , I was more worried about
waking up to find a stranger sleeping next to me on my berth. Vomit-inducing thought,
really. After an hour, the TTR came. He checked our tickets. He made a very
half-hearted, feeble attempt at telling the encroachers to move out of the
compartment. They stared on , unresponsive to the request.
So cursing myself and vowing never to travel in that train
again I covered myself with a blanket too afraid to fall asleep. I failed to
understand how railway rules differed from one to another. On the Bangalore
Mail , not having a ticket would entail moving out of the carriage asap. There was
no second option unless we could convince the TTR that we deserved the extra
seat more than the others. But no, this Guwahati Express played a whole new
ball game. Confirmed or not , the passengers are the Maharajas of the train and
nobody was going to make them get off it.
My friend woke up to find the upper torso of a man on the
aisle berth and his lower limbs stretched precariously placed on her berth.
Another man perched himself on the lower end of another woman’s berth. I could
barely stifle myself from screaming. We got down from our berths and looked up
to find them immediately occupied by other passengers.
If that was horrible , the worst was yet to come.
Disembarking from the train included groping .
Hell if I could explain that in clearer terms.
Only a minor percentage of trains are fit to travel in . The
rest are covered with bedbugs, cockroaches and rodents that have made trains
their homes. I agree that with the train fares that you charge, its difficult
to maintain the hygiene on the trains. That’s
why you have First Class!!! Increase the
fares for the classes that can afford to pay no matter what the rate is. No one is going to vote you out of power for
giving one class the option of paying more and going for cleaner rail travel.
And I presume you already know all this and more.
Then why don’t you do something about it. Improve the
hygiene, allow only legitimate ticket passengers and increase the goddamn
number of trains.
I know its easy to say and difficult to implement. But that’s
your job isn’t it ?
Regards
A very disgruntled Indian Railways passenger
p.s. You could might as well look into the infamous IRCTC
website and stop becoming the pun of all jokes.
