Nagpur - Adventure, Misery and Triumph, You dont need to bribe

Adventure and Luck don't always go together but that's what I experienced on my trip to Nagpur from Mumbai.

traveling by rickshaw from home to the local train station turned out to be more than the usual 10 minute rickshaw ride, as a result I missed my train to Nagpur. I had confirmed seats on that train.

Next I get the ticket cancelled. Unbelievable but true, in India you get 50% refund if you do not complete your journey. The deputy station manager advises me to buy a regular general class ticket (cost Rs.177/US$ 4 for a 800km train journey) and board the next train to Nagpur leaving in the next one hour.

I do exactly that without being sure of getting a seat let alone a berth for the overnight journey to Nagpur from Mumbai. I get on the train, leave my bags with a kind soul and set out on a mission to find the ticket checker. After walking through the train for 15 mins I finally find him and speak to him to see if its possible to accommodate me in the Air Conditioned coaches by paying the difference in fares.

Get a flat refusal from him saying that he cannot allot me a seat without taking care of the wait listed passengers first. I am not allowed to even sit near the AC coach and shooed away to the general coach which is literally bursting at its seams with people.

At this point the future looks bleak and I resign myself to spending the night on the floor of the train in the gangway between two compartments. If only I had started earlier from home and not missed my train .. If only..

Meanwhile I make interesting conversation with two other young men, sitting on either side on the floor of the train with me. They are in a similar situation as me, though not exactly. One had to rush in an emergency to Calcutta (eastern India) and could not get confirmed tickets. This chap is a Bachelor of Arts student from Bhawanipore college, Kolkatta (as Calcutta is now called). The other is a young man from Wardha, heading back home. He works as a service engineer with a diagnostic company in Wardha.

Soon we are outside city limits and cruising along at breakneck speed. This is the Superfast Howrah Mail. It takes 36 hours to cover the distance between Mumbai and Kolkatta.
Many others like me have given up hopes of getting a ticket without bribing the Ticket checker or some other official/authority on the train. None have funds to afford both, a ticket plus the bribe.

Hoping against hope I go to meet the ticket checker again to explore the possibility of a berth. I am very clear in my head that I wont bribe, and if at all he asks for something I would lecture him on morals, ethics and corruption :)

When I meet him, he recognises me immediately and says there is one seat available. At this point I am half expecting a mention of 'favour money' aka bribe.

Nexy he begins calculating the exact fare with taxes after deducting the fare for the general class ticket which was already paid for. He writes down a official receipt and I pay him exact change for the lawful fare being charged. He allots me a seat number and instructs the coach attendant to give me the blanket and pillow I am entitled to.

Thats it, no "favour money" asked for, no "favour money" offered. I head back to the general compartment to retrieve my bag. Along the way I meet others who are without a seat, they ask me "How much money did the ticket checker take?" meaning how bribe did you offer to get a ticket.

When I say, "nothing" I see about 10 people rushing in the direction of the ticket checker to get their tickets. I am not sure if they met with the same luck as me though. None of them could believe that one could get a ticket without paying "favour money"

You might say thats a very happy ending to the story of how I got a place to sleep without paying a bribe. But no. When I got to the Pantry section of the train, I discovered the shutters were down. Apparently after 10:30 at night they down shutters to avoid hungry "seat-less" hence sleep-less travellers looking for food.

The Pantry coach is the only coach seperating me from my bag and in turn from the berth I had just found, for a blissful sleep through the night.

Fortunately the train stops soon at a station and I get off the train walk up to the coach where my bag was, thank the young man from wardha for looking after it and head back to my bed in the AC coach.

Blissful sleep in air conditioned comfort for the rest of the night after that.
You really dont need to bribe to get your work done.

Writing this from Nagpur .. 43.5 degree celcius (approx 110 F I think) here.

Hello world

Those two words "Hello World" is what most computer programming books teach you to print, when you write your first little piece of code.

Thats my way of saying hello to the world of blogs, with a promise of lots more to come.