Life at Cross-RAILS

(A rib-tickling 100% authentic saga of a present IITian)

The Indian railways have a labyrinthine network of 81511 Km and the network is ever burgeoning. But every new train that is added adds also to the confusion and difficulties of some poor, befuddled people whose lives get entangled in the cobwebs of railway to such an extent that makes us guffaw at their pathetic predicament.

This anecdote is about a perfectly sane IITian who had probably his worst day in the office. The DP hols had just begun and as with all of us, pangs of nostalgia began to gnaw at him. He had to go to Ranchi but the water-tight schedule of the mid-sems had forbidden him from making a reservation. So he chose to go via JAM by ISPAT Exp scheduled at 8.30 a.m. the next day. So thrilled he was that even the last 2 days ‘night-outs’ could not muster up enough sleep for him. Further adding to his woes was the high decibel music being played in the wing to mark and celebrate the end of the mid sems.

Suddenly a sinister idea sprang up in the mind of one of his mischievous friends who woke him up. After a brief tête-à-tête, through cogent arguments he managed to fuel him with enough tempo to convince him to go by the 5:30 a.m. local train to JAM. (Considering the biting cold, the tempo needs to be very high man) And this is where the trouble began.

With snoozy eyes, he began packing his bag at 4:00 a.m. prepared for a 3^rd consecutive night-out (I can tell you that too needs some cali). Suddenly he realized that it had gone very late and after hurriedly bidding good bye to all his mates, he set off for a rickshaw. The rickshaw puller was an old one but they somehow managed to reach the station at 5:30 am. Now a quandary of whether to take a ticket or not enveloped him. The sluggish pace of the queue made him dash towards the sub-way but half way through he finally found himself short of enough audacity to travel WT. So he again ran back to the ticket counter where a middle aged railway virtuoso (experienced campaigners generally found on every platform with a typical load-mat-le look) told him that the train would come on platform 1 at 6:30 am.

Relieved and tired as he sat on a bench, he saw a local train come and halt at the cusp of platform 1 and 3 in the same direction. Startled and amused by the surprise arrival of a train before time in India and also by the almost empty compartments, he gleefully captured a window seat and the train set rolling. As he kept wondering about the empty compartment and the frigid atmosphere, Lady Sleep got the better of him.

Suddenly the cacophony of a station roused him from his kip. He found an old rustic woman poking at him and asking him his intended destination. He jabbered “Jamshedpur” nervously and her answer was something that took him off his feet. Yes she said,”Eta Tata na, eta MIDNAPORE. Jodi Kharagpur jete hobe, to tara tari samner train ta dhore nao….DAURAO… ”

From whatever little Bengali he knew, all he could decipher was that it did not sound good. He leaped out of the bogie, ran madly across the platform and just about managed to cling on to the train. Obviously he had no ticket and so the curses to god for destroying his sleep and his journey were also mingled with prayers to keep the bete noire for all WTs – the TTE away.

When he finally came back at square one i.e. Kgp again, all his energy and enthu had sapped. He had a couple of idlis at the station, and after giving a host of abuses to his friend who had suggested the morning train, he reclined on a bench. He couldn’t go back to the hostel fearing the ignominy and the spate of sardonic comments and concomitantly decided to reach Ranchi, come hell or high water.

At 8.30 a.m. sharp, two trains arrive simultaneously at Kgp, the ISPAT Exp which was the ground zero of our hero and the STEEL Exp which goes exactly in the opposite direction. Our hero misunderstood the announcement (which I myself have never been able to decipher all my life) and started scurrying to Platform 5. In the process he kept thinking of why the others didn’t budge when the platform of arrival has been suddenly changed. But thinking them as yokels and seeing 1-2 persons also jumping across the rails towards platform 5, he assured himself. When the train arrived, he saw TATA-HOWRAH Exp written on it as against the usual HOWRAH-SAMBALPUR Exp. Perhaps in the 4 months hiatus, the route has been truncated up to Tata only, he surmised. Though why it’s TATA HOWRAH and not HOWRAH TATA still baffled him. Still trusting his hearing of the announcement, he stepped inside only to find it choc-a-bloc with passengers.

As the train gathered speed, he managed to win some sq. feet of space to plant his feet. He endured the throes like a stoic and chuckled to himself at finally being en route to his destination. But the train didn’t seem to stop at any intermediate stations perplexing him. He again assured himself by the logic that may be in the 4 months time, the train had been made Super Fast. After 2 grueling hours, the train finally stopped and he peeked out of the window to find the name ‘SANTRAGACHI’ etched on a yellow stone. Now this name was familiar though he had not come here many times. Again he tried to assure himself that maybe Santragachi was en route to Jamshedpur but for him too, this was too much. He knew that his game was over but as a final nail in the coffin he furtively asked from a vendor where was this train going. He gave him a weird look and answered “HOWRAH”. (While some others smiled at this stupid question)

Our hero was dumbstruck. He saw a local train on the other side of the platform facing Kharagpur and following his knee jerk reaction jumped out of the train. This time he went straight to the driver and with expectant eyes asked “Dada! Kharagpur chaloge?” as if hiring a rickshaw. The answer of course was a flat Naveen Prabhakar NO. He turned backwards only to see the back of STEEL Exp throwing him good byes kiss.

So here he was marooned in the middle of a ho hum platform, famished, dozy and terribly flustered. To beef up his anguish, he saw his bete noire the TTE converging at him with nimble steps and glary eyes. Notwithstanding all his pleas and Overacting (his gave it all he had learnt in the inter hall drams this year), his wallet became lighter by 200 bucks as he was left for the next jam-packed local train to devour whatever morsels of patience and endurance was left in him. As he stepped on the Kharagpur platform at 2.00 p.m. suffering miseries galore, he summoned up all his courage to give it a final try as he saw another local for Jamshedpur parked on the flip end of the longest platform in the world.

He ran for all his might for the entire 1 km with a heavy bag on his shoulders and finally managed to capture a seat. But then pangs of hunger impelled him to go looking for food on the listless platform only to find all the stalls shut for lunch. Now this was enough, too much. He collected his valise and with drooping shoulders cantered straight towards the exit.

On his way back, he rang up his wingie to intimate him that he was coming back, sending him into fits of laughter. Everyone stood with bated breath and pounced on him as soon as he reached the hall, shredding his dignity to pieces with the humor sword. He too could do nothing but smile at his repute’s death procession.

So we finally come to the end of this ordeal cum odyssey. I hope you enjoyed reading it. The only thing I want to tell you is that if you consider this guy to be a freak, an oddball...better watch out. May be next time its your life which is at cross-RAILS.