Railway Station !!

Sunday Morning 9:oo am, My brother called me up and said "Brother, what are you doing?” (This is a tricky question.) I though may be my brother is gonna take me for outing, I said “Nothing”.(He got me). “Ok. I got a work for you. You have to go to railway station and cancel my reservation." (Yes! your brother never asks you he always tells you). I had to say "Okay" and got ready by 10 (Sunday morning 10 am ready ... it sucks). I went to my brother's place, picked up ticket and went to Bangalore city junction.

I reached Bangalore city junction, parked my bike and went to reservation office. As soon as I entered the reservation counter lobby, first 5 secs I was shocked. I could not decide what to do? .. I could just see a long queue with frustrated faces. 5 mins I stood away from queue to see how fast the queue was moving ahead. After seeing that queue is moving with rocket's speed (in 10 min 2 people moving), I could not dare to get into queue.

There were 8 counters to assist people for reservation/ cancellation. Looking that sight was pretty good. Suddenly a question striked me, if there are 8 counters, why the queue is not moving at all? Even if I consider 10 min per person to serve, in worst case the queue should move 6-7 people in 10min. Trying to figure out what was happening, I moved ahead and got my answer. Out of 8 windows 2 had banners "Lunch Time 1-1:30". I saw my watch it was 11:30 (May be my watch was slow or those people were following Thailand timings). 1 window did not have any person serving. Cool, 8 counters, 3 are useless (I was simply loving my Sunday morning)!!

After thinking for couple of minutes, I thought of going to Yeshwantpur station (Thinking as it is small, it would be less crowded.) I picked up my bike and headed towards Yeshwantpur. With lot of optimism about empty counter, I entered Reservation lobby and I couldnt have asked for worse situation than what I saw. Only 4 counters to server people and a long queue which was going out of the reservation lobby. I knew my day is gone. But this time I had no option but to stand in queue (Cursed myself a lot for not standing in a queue at Bangalore City Junction, but that normal many time I dont do something and then curse myself for not doing that). Frustrated but couldnt help myself.

After standing in a queue for 30 min I finally got into lobby and got a seat. (I closed my eyes and just felt like Raja relaxing on that seat). While relaxing like never before I felt someone tapping my shoulder. I looked my right, the guy was asking me move ahead as person left to me had already moved ahead in a (Chair)queue. I moved ahead (Yes this is a pain. Stand up every 2 minutes and seat in next Chair). 5 min more and the same guy tapped me and asked something in kannad which I just put question mark on my face. Looked like he understood that I dont understand Kannada he finally asked me "Yeshwantpur-Anantpur gaadi ka number kya hai?" (More frustration. I mean … have I by heart all the trains number in India). I told him to go to the board at back and see the train number of a train he was asking me. He asked me to not allow to sit anyone on his seat by the time he comes back. (Now I was a seat keeper even. God!!). So now everytime I was moving ahead in a queue I had to tell guy after me not to seat on an empty seat after me. 20 min passed the guy dint come back (Donno if he really needed 20min to find train no. did he go out to to have food). Finally he came after 30min.

5 more minutes passed, guy who was sitting 2 seats ahead of me asked me “Bhaiya form bhar do yeh?” "Okay" is what I could tell him. Filled up his form after lot of confusion over his name (Ramlingayyappa) and place he wanted to go Udhagamandalam. Slowly, I was moving closer towards the counter. After couple of chats with other guys around, shouting on a person who was acting smart and going ahead by breaking queue I finally got just next to counter with 2-3 people ahead of me. With smile coming back on face, another fiasco Lunch Break 1-1:30 PM (God .. you cant be doing this to me. Sitting in front of a window could be so frustrating I dint know) Finally 1:40pm the lunch break got over and being first in a queue I got a first chance (First time in last 3 hrs I felt privileged). Finally I got my ticket canceled at 1:45pm

Got outta that lobby cursing my bro and railway dept for spoiling my Sunday morning. But this experience gave me a chance to think about complete system. How does Railway dept decide over how many counters should be there on a station? (I mean 5 working counters on a station like Bangalore is just ridiculous, even a paanwala can tell that you need atleast 10 counters). Government can remove a lot of unemployment by just increasing number of counters on these station by giving employment to more number of people and serving travelers in a better way.

The condition is not only on railway station, every day to day service has same condition Post office, Govt. hospital, RTO office, Passport office, Legislative office, Telephone office, just everything. But welcome to India. Government is not interested in public interest. Here MP's are interested in their statues (Mayawati), IPL franchise (Shashi Tharoor), non-sense comments (Mulayam Singh, "Agar Aurtein sansad mein jayegi toh ladke siti bajayenge" ,, I mean wdf!!), flyover inauguration controversy (Ashok chavan), their dress (Shivraj Patil). These politicians, if they can even think of Indian people for 1 hr a day I think India would be a better place. But who wants to eradicate these problems or what issue these politicians will raise to ask votes in next election.

But I think Indians are now used to it, unless they stand in a queue for every necessary and unnecessary thing, they wont feel good !!!!