I finally look at my ticket. I have never in all my life seen a single train ticket that conveys so much information. It declares the distance to travel; whether I am an adult or child; gender specifications; age details; ticket number which is different from a booking number which in turn varies from a reservation number; the class of journey; some other random but rather official-looking numbers; coach number; berth number; seat number; ticketing authority; concession status, rupee fee. It even has a note on the side suggesting a ‘Happy Journey’. It’s astonishing really. This single ticket has more information than some novellas I have read. And the information is truly inspired if you know what to do with it, if you know how to decode it and make the information work in your favour. Such decoding is lost on me.
I know I am at the right station at the right time; I have been reciting it in my sleep for the last two days. My gender is correct and I have to thank them for making me three years younger on the ticket than I really am. What is vexing me are the details of my carriage and berth number: carriage WL/17 and berth WL/05. There seem to be no such carriages; more worrying still, there seem to be no carriages even close to that description.
I have very limited experience of Indian travel as an adult, but one thing I can be sure of: whatever else one might say about the trains here, the seat numbering system is exemplary; never in all my train-travelling experience has there ever been confusion or fuss about where exactly on the train I should sit. Never. So you can understand my confusion and fuss at being asked to locate a carriage that simply doesn’t seem to exist.
Having perambulated the entire length of the train I am none the wiser and still unseated. Luckily for me, or so I think, each carriage has a printout plastered on the side listing names and seat allocations. The only carriages that don’t provide such information are the third-class compartments. These are already full of people, boxes, bags of rice and the odd chicken. They are euphemistically referred to as ‘free-seating areas’, a.k.a. first come, first served. I walk carriage lengths at a time, samosas and bananas in one hand, case and ticket in the other. My nervousness grows exponentially as each printout draws a blank. It seems that every conceivable anagram of the five letters K-O-H-L-I appears save for the correct spelling of my name. I scuttle past another third-class carriage, catching myself thinking the worst. Is this where I will have to sit? Having checked every carriage, every list twice I end up back at the head of the train, none the wiser and a great deal wearier. My name appears nowhere. Not in type, not in biro, not in chalk; not even in my own imagination. It is like I have ceased to exist. I have been air-brushed out of Indian railway history in some sort of Stalinist manoeuvre to revise my very being. (As you can see I wasn’t taking this experience too personally.)
I look at my ticket again in the vain hope that the 2km hike up and down the train might have imbued me with some new power of Indian Railway Ticket Understanding, or IRTU as I will now and for ever call it. Alas, my IRTU is still at novice level. My IRTU has got me to:
a) The right station
b) The right platform
c) On the right day
d) At the right time
Thereafter my IRTU has failed me. Spectacularly. As I hopelessly flounder, examining my ticket for the thousandthtime, the lone Indian Railways official policing this platform walks past. Seeing me obviously confused, he ups his pace in an attempt to avoid close questioning. I manage somehow to trap him as I spread myself and my case and my samosa and bananas as wide as I can. He barely looks at my ticket and instructs me to board any old carriage and let the omniscient conductor sort out the fine detail.
It is 9:24. I have six minutes to make a decision. Time being of the essence I jump into the
I know I am at the right station at the right time; I have been reciting it in my sleep for the last two days. My gender is correct and I have to thank them for making me three years younger on the ticket than I really am. What is vexing me are the details of my carriage and berth number: carriage WL/17 and berth WL/05. There seem to be no such carriages; more worrying still, there seem to be no carriages even close to that description.
I have very limited experience of Indian travel as an adult, but one thing I can be sure of: whatever else one might say about the trains here, the seat numbering system is exemplary; never in all my train-travelling experience has there ever been confusion or fuss about where exactly on the train I should sit. Never. So you can understand my confusion and fuss at being asked to locate a carriage that simply doesn’t seem to exist.
Having perambulated the entire length of the train I am none the wiser and still unseated. Luckily for me, or so I think, each carriage has a printout plastered on the side listing names and seat allocations. The only carriages that don’t provide such information are the third-class compartments. These are already full of people, boxes, bags of rice and the odd chicken. They are euphemistically referred to as ‘free-seating areas’, a.k.a. first come, first served. I walk carriage lengths at a time, samosas and bananas in one hand, case and ticket in the other. My nervousness grows exponentially as each printout draws a blank. It seems that every conceivable anagram of the five letters K-O-H-L-I appears save for the correct spelling of my name. I scuttle past another third-class carriage, catching myself thinking the worst. Is this where I will have to sit? Having checked every carriage, every list twice I end up back at the head of the train, none the wiser and a great deal wearier. My name appears nowhere. Not in type, not in biro, not in chalk; not even in my own imagination. It is like I have ceased to exist. I have been air-brushed out of Indian railway history in some sort of Stalinist manoeuvre to revise my very being. (As you can see I wasn’t taking this experience too personally.)
I look at my ticket again in the vain hope that the 2km hike up and down the train might have imbued me with some new power of Indian Railway Ticket Understanding, or IRTU as I will now and for ever call it. Alas, my IRTU is still at novice level. My IRTU has got me to:
a) The right station
b) The right platform
c) On the right day
d) At the right time
Thereafter my IRTU has failed me. Spectacularly. As I hopelessly flounder, examining my ticket for the thousandthtime, the lone Indian Railways official policing this platform walks past. Seeing me obviously confused, he ups his pace in an attempt to avoid close questioning. I manage somehow to trap him as I spread myself and my case and my samosa and bananas as wide as I can. He barely looks at my ticket and instructs me to board any old carriage and let the omniscient conductor sort out the fine detail.
It is 9:24. I have six minutes to make a decision. Time being of the essence I jump into the
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