Three Train Tales

It was early 2000. I used to travel frequently between Bangalore and Kochi by train.  One day I boarded Kanyakumari Express from Bangalore city station and occupied my seat in a reserved compartment.  My seat number was 42.  The train pulled out at 8 pm.  The next station was Bangalore Cantonment.  A middle-aged passenger boarded the train at Cant., came straight to my seat and said, ‘this is my seat’.  I was a bit annoyed by the way he spoke to me.  I said, ‘this is my seat’.  He said, ‘show me your ticket’. I said, ‘why should I show you my ticket, I am sure this is my seat.  You better check your ticket’.  He was in a fighting mood, as if I had wrongly occupied his seat.  Finally, he pulled out his ticket, looked at it and said, ‘look, 42 is my seat’.  I looked at his ticket.  The railway reservation tickets usually have the seat number, sex and age of the passenger printed on it.  Pointing to his ticket, I told him, ‘see, 42 is your age, your seat number is something else’!  He didn’t know how to face me.  Realising his folly, he said sorry and moved on.

The second incident took place a few years earlier to this, when I was at Ahmedabad.  Venkataraman, my roommate, was travelling from Ahmedabad to Chennai by an early morning train.  I saw him off at around 5 am and went back to sleep.  After some time, I heard someone knocking on the door – it was Venkataraman. I asked him, ‘what happened, you missed the train?’.  He said, ‘no, something strange happened. When I reached the railway station, the train was already on the platform.  But when I got into the compartment, I saw another passenger with his family in my allotted seat.  I told him, this is my seat.  He said, no this is my seat.  He showed his ticket, yes, he was right.  I took out my ticket.  I was surprised, how could railways allot the same seat to two passengers.  Suddenly, he asked me, are you supposed to travel by today’s train.  I said, yes.  He continued, oh, this is the train that was supposed to depart yesterday.  Due to a derailment somewhere enroute, all trains are running late and this one is running 24 hours late.  Your train has not yet arrived at Ahmedabad.  Then I checked the dates on our tickets.  Surprised, I got down and went to the enquiry counter, they said today’s train is expected to depart at around 1 pm.  So, I came back.

The third incident happened when I was in college.  My uncle and family were travelling to Bombay from Kollam in Kerala by Jayanti Janata Express.  Jayanti Janata Express ran between Kanyakumari and Bombay.  When they were about to leave their home, he made a phone call to the railway enquiry number and asked, ‘is Jayanti Janata on time?’ ‘No Sir, it is running 60 minutes late’.  Relaxed, they went a little later to the station.  When they reached the station, they were told that Jayanti Janata was on time and the train had already left Kollam.  Then he came to know that the Bombay-Kanyakumari down train was running 60 minutes late.  Since both the up and down trains crossed Kollam almost at the same time, there was this confusion.  They didn’t know what to do.  Jayanti Janata was the only train connecting Kollam and Bombay back then and to get another ticket they had to wait for more than a month.  The station master suggested, if they could drive fast by road and head straight to Ernakulam, where the train stopped for 20 minutes, they had a bleak chance of catching the train.  He told them not to try in any other station in between because in all those stations the halt was just 1-2 minutes.  Ernakulam was 150 kilometers away.  Somehow my uncle showed courage.  He took his brother’s car and drove straight to Ernakulam.  Since I was at Kochi (Ernakulam), his brother called me and asked me to go to Ernakulam railway station, so that I could help them board the train, in case they reached at the neck of the moment.  When I reached the station, I could hear the announcement of the train’s arrival.  Their car had not yet reached (remember, no cell phones those days).  Shortly, I saw the train arriving on the platform.  Holding my breath, I waited there.  Suddenly I could see their speeding car in the distance.  As soon as the car stopped at the portico, we swung into action, picked up their luggage and ran towards the train.  As they stepped in, we heard the whistle and the train started moving! All of us had a sigh of relief.