After the hiatus from sarcasm and as a contradiction to the sign off in my previous post, I've decided on Myopic Musings - II. I'm not sure why its myopic or why one should even refer to anything as a musing, but either ways, the point is that I decided to and its not really your choice!
My love and fascination of the Indian Railways, mixed with the agony at the very thought of how an organization as complicated as the railways even manages to function despite being so disconnected, disoriented and several other "dis'" and "dys'", is indeed ironic. My very first post Numero Uno was about a railway experience. Had this been a movie by Goutham Menon, it would probably be tagged as "Another story is railway line".
Last sunday morning, I had to book tickets for a certain special train (read as train that was launched to cover additional passengers who crop up during a particular season). Since this service was launched only on that day, the train was not listed on the online booking service. Hence with no other option I cajoled myself and my almost jalopy to get the ticket booked at a nearby reservation center.
I've been to this reservation center in the past, and it is generally a pictorial representation of complete chaos - people trying to maintain something close to queue, stray reservation forms with footprints, an old dirty fish tank (the fish in the dirty seemed quite content, probably bachelor fish), agents with bags slung across with multiple forms etc. And this is on one of the off days, sunday mornings are usually worse than the above description (thank god, the regular trains are available online!). With above image in my head, I headed towards the center with a trepidition almost like that when I have no other option but go shopping (Nothing can match up to that fear and arachnophobia). But to my pleasant surprise, there was almost no crowd, much lesser than what would be there on even the so called off peak period.
I meandered through the sparse crowd, before heading off the ATM to withdraw money, only to realize that they now accepted credit card payments. Irony, it seems always trails me. Its quite awesome, how the railway booking office has evolved with flat screen computers and even a flat TV outside each counter. These TVs flash advertisements ranging from the IPL to Cosmetics to Social Responsibility. Quite fascinating. Curiosity got the better of me and I quizzed the clerk behind the counter if the crowd was less only today or numbers had falled since the inception of online reservation. Indeed, the latter was the reasoning I got.
Anyways getting back to the point of the TVs. The bottom half of the screen had something like a search engine for trains with fields to enter the From and To location, and had a field to indicate the number of tickets available etc. I was only ruminating as to whether I would see what was being entered in the clerks system on this screen, the clerk responded saying - "Saar, you can see there when ticket is being booked". Awesome! I waited for the data to flash on the screen. It seemed to take for ever, when the clerk asked me for the card to complete the booking. Apparently the machine was not working and hence never showed the information. For a few fleeting moments I was almost in complete awe of the system and yet somehow all that came crashing down in a fleeting moment.
Its ironic indeed, that a system as chaotic as this could be as awesome as it is...
My love and fascination of the Indian Railways, mixed with the agony at the very thought of how an organization as complicated as the railways even manages to function despite being so disconnected, disoriented and several other "dis'" and "dys'", is indeed ironic. My very first post Numero Uno was about a railway experience. Had this been a movie by Goutham Menon, it would probably be tagged as "Another story is railway line".
Last sunday morning, I had to book tickets for a certain special train (read as train that was launched to cover additional passengers who crop up during a particular season). Since this service was launched only on that day, the train was not listed on the online booking service. Hence with no other option I cajoled myself and my almost jalopy to get the ticket booked at a nearby reservation center.
I've been to this reservation center in the past, and it is generally a pictorial representation of complete chaos - people trying to maintain something close to queue, stray reservation forms with footprints, an old dirty fish tank (the fish in the dirty seemed quite content, probably bachelor fish), agents with bags slung across with multiple forms etc. And this is on one of the off days, sunday mornings are usually worse than the above description (thank god, the regular trains are available online!). With above image in my head, I headed towards the center with a trepidition almost like that when I have no other option but go shopping (Nothing can match up to that fear and arachnophobia). But to my pleasant surprise, there was almost no crowd, much lesser than what would be there on even the so called off peak period.
I meandered through the sparse crowd, before heading off the ATM to withdraw money, only to realize that they now accepted credit card payments. Irony, it seems always trails me. Its quite awesome, how the railway booking office has evolved with flat screen computers and even a flat TV outside each counter. These TVs flash advertisements ranging from the IPL to Cosmetics to Social Responsibility. Quite fascinating. Curiosity got the better of me and I quizzed the clerk behind the counter if the crowd was less only today or numbers had falled since the inception of online reservation. Indeed, the latter was the reasoning I got.
Anyways getting back to the point of the TVs. The bottom half of the screen had something like a search engine for trains with fields to enter the From and To location, and had a field to indicate the number of tickets available etc. I was only ruminating as to whether I would see what was being entered in the clerks system on this screen, the clerk responded saying - "Saar, you can see there when ticket is being booked". Awesome! I waited for the data to flash on the screen. It seemed to take for ever, when the clerk asked me for the card to complete the booking. Apparently the machine was not working and hence never showed the information. For a few fleeting moments I was almost in complete awe of the system and yet somehow all that came crashing down in a fleeting moment.
Its ironic indeed, that a system as chaotic as this could be as awesome as it is...
