Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A train journey that I would never forget!

After long months of blunder less, steady and careful life a stupid blunder spoiling all the hard work. Yeah, each time when I do something foolish I decide to be a bit more careful and not to make any blunder again. But the life has always been cruel to me by setting a kind of timer in my brain which alarms at an interval to make some blunder. Chennai floods when it rains and I try to run away from this city when it’s just about to flood. Of some luck I had ticket to travel home during the weekend of recent flood. I boarded 8’o clock train went directly to S5/25 without looking any of the beautiful girls sitting in that compartment with Layola t-shirts. I went to my seat and rested peacefully after the divider jumping police fight tragedy near central station.

Soon the train started to move, but all of a sudden a guy came to me and told where I am sitting is on his seat. I looked at ticket and verified my seat number and travel date is correct! But that guy showed his ticket which is also for the same seat. In my mind, I was laughing at those software engineers who programmed the Indian railway reservation system. I prayed let it be a hard bug to fix! And there comes the TTE and we ran to him telling same seat number for both ticket! After looking at my ticket TTE looked me like and Alien. Meanwhile the magical eyes of TTE has found something in the ticket which he have marked with a big blue circle! Holy shit! The train I booked was indeed the 5’o clock train and I landed in a big trouble by boarding in 8’o clock Managlore mail! Right that moment TTE asked me to exit the train and get in the general compartment! As I asked for help he gave me a chance and told me to pay 250Rs fine plus 280Rs ticket charge which will take me home. I checked my wallet to see that I only have 300Rs left and I starred at my last ATM transaction slip to see I have 40k balance in my account because it was just the start of the month! I told it to that bloody TTE and he threw ticket back on my face and told if I don’t give money before next station I have to get out of the train!

As my brain works better when situation goes bad I was never out of plans!!! I got a nice idea!!! I bet you can’t even make a guess on it. I made a plan in my mind to walk through the compartment to find an Adidas or Reebok tshirt and of my surprise in the next compartment there stands a guy with nice Rbk symbol on his left chest! I went to him, and following was the conversation:

Me: Hey, where you working?
Raj: HCL, what happened, do I know you?
Me: Ofcourse not, even though I hope you did!
Raj: Then?
Me: Yea, I was looking for someone who has a Reebok t-shirt
Raj[Surprised]: What?
Me: Hey, chill! I am not gonna ask for that t-shirt now. I need a different help!
Raj[Like to someone he knew for a long time]: Hey, how can I help you man?
Me: Yea, I will explain. Being frank after all the explanation I am going to ask you 200Rs which I am gonna transfer to you right now!
Raj[After all the story]: Hey, no need to transfer now buddy. Give it back when we meet next time.(And I gave it back during the return journey from Kerala 2 days later)

And after that we both went to the TTE paid the fine, his cousin was also in the train, talked for a long time, laughed till late night, and had a perfect sleep. Sometime you need to do stupid things :). For the first time in the life I understood the use of a branded t-shirt!