I could hardly rely on our “great indian railways” anymore. I had a terrible experience on 13th may of this year. I was going to write an exam in Allahabad and I got every formality done before the big day. Birth in the train was reserved and I reached the station right on time. Train was supposed to reach at kanpur station at 2:00 AM and I with my friend got there 2 hours ago. As soon as we got there pathetic situations popped up. The railway display was showing some other train with the train number we had.

we some how got the idea of which train we r supposed to climb on. We were all set to wait till 2 AM when an announcement shook our soul. Our train was late by 4 hrs. That means we were going to spent our night right on the platform. Journey to Allahabad takes 2.5 hrs if train runs normally so we had some hope to catch up the exam (which was at 10 AM). To pass the ominous time standing before us we started to look things related to civil engg like trusses, railway sleepers (yuck…they were blocked with ****) and bridge. This wasnt sufficient to pass time by more than 1-2 hrs. I wished if I had an i-pod or a cell with mp3 songs. My desire to enjoy a song found a way out when I called Rewa di asking her what do I do. Her caller tone plays a song “main jahan rahoon..main kahi bhi rahoon”. I gave her couple of missed calls to ensure someone remaining awake while I was enjoying that song. The song was perfect,best for that time with a tiny problem that it had only one line “main jahan rahoon, main kahi bhi rahoon, teri yad sath hai” being repeated every time. 

A bunch of foreigners was waiting for Rajdhani express and they started to notice weired things in indian railways. They took pictures of pathetic railway sleepers, roaming cows and postel department.They even started to discuss on distinguishing cow and bull (After all there must be something to discuss on and they caught a poor cow/bull.In the mean time we thought of returning to the IIT campus many times but every time the railway announcements enlightened hopes of the train.

At around 6 AM when the train was supposed to arrive we lost temper and headed to the station master. Like every government employee he was  frustrated with his job too.When we asked him about the train, he burst up ” kuch kam karne doge bhi ya nahi”. This dialogue by him turned us wicked and we started replying him with double intense sound. The whole office staff gathered to hear us. Probably they were not used to hear compaints often because they got separate people to tolerate complaints. These people often turn out deaf in entertaining complaints and enjoy other topics like elections,polling results etc. After the fair debate in the station master`s office we came out in a mood to beat someone who could dare to struggle with us.

The train came at 7 AM and shook our nerves because no way it was going to leave us at our destination at right time. At that moment we had to make a quick decision on what to do. Returning back to campus was a hard step to take because some of our “true” friends would probably make fun of us for a week on our hard luck so we were forced to enter in our bogie. Now the funny side in finding our bogie..we kept on counting the bogie numbers. S1 S3 S2 S4 S5 S6 and then general compartment. Where the hell is S7 then.. we ran to cover full length of the train to find out where did they embed this bogie.Thank god..they actually put it in the train. I took my seat and could not resist to sleep. At 9.45 AM i was awakened by my friend and said..uth sale..train allahabad ke bahar khadi hai. aage signal nahi mil raha.” what a courteous train we had. It gave way to every single train coming behind it and then waiting outside the city to find space enough to be fitting in the platform. We came out of the train and walked across the track to find road and exam centre eventually. We tried to hire services of a rickshaw but the generous man asked us not to bother abt the test centre as it is at a distance of few meters from there. ofcourse he didnot mention how many meters and we did not ask too. It was around 2000 meters from there. We reached the exam centre at 10.45 and were not allowed to enter.

 They say every experience teaches us something and what we learned are-

Indian railways are prone to get late by 4-5 hrs so plan your work accordingly.

Never ask a rikshawala (in Allahabad) as to how far ur destination is.

It is better to spend more money in a bus and reach late by few minutes rather than waiting as well as reaching late by couple of hrs in a train.

“Happy Journey”