Saturday, March 04, 2006

The gr8 train journey.....in the making!

How not to travel in train?!

The situation
: I ask a friend of mine to book a train ticket online(well....dont have a online account myself) from Pune to Bangalore on Saturday mid-night (5th @ 2.30AM....note tht date will be 5th and not 4th...haha)........as i had thought of attending SIBM's fest Transcend. Amit Karale also wanted to go to bangalore frm pune.....so, we plan to go together.......

As things sometimes dont work out as planned, i somehow stay back in mumbai (while karale goes to pune). So, have got to take a ticket till pune.....and then go to bangalore as planned.

What went wrong: Ticketz wrongly booked as 4th March, instead of 5th March. Well, the date would be 5th March since its morning 2.30AM. As it so happens, well....i end up with a ticket which is not valid.......and wat worse.... i did'nt realise this till quite some time....

Here's a nice chronological sequence of events.....that happened today.


7.00PM: i leave nitie, catch an auto.....and reach Kanjurmarg station. Immediately, i take a slow train to Dadar.
8.15PM: after enquiring, i take a ticket to pune. something fishy when i dont find my name in the list of seats booked in the list on s5 compartment.
8.30PM: have a masala dosa and mosambi juice outside dadar station....really gud one, a karnataka reataurant!
9:00PM to 10.30PM: start readin this book called 'Blink' based on how intuition can suggest u stuff which data cannot proove....nice book. make a mental note of finishing it in train.
10.30PM: board the train, and quietly occupy the seat.
10.45PM: train leaves, all happi:)
11.20PM: something wrong.....why has someone else got a seat to bangalore for seats 5 and 8 in coach s5??
11.30PM: TT asks for the ticket. well...well... i am travellin with a old ticket!! yes, i should have got on the train yesterday!!
wat now?!
11.45PM: call up karale who's in pune(he's a little bewildered).....weighing my options.
12PM: Ask the TT wat can be done: 2 options- take a ticket frm pune to bangalore in general (or travel in sleeper waiting for a confirmation) or quietly get down at Kalyan and get back to 'welcome to nitie'.
12.05PM: i call home....well more abuses, still thinking.....
12.10PM: i call up karale and tell him tat me goin bac.....yup...he's also a little edgy
12.20PM: i get down at Kalyan, apply for a refund (for the ticket....gone waste)...catch a train to kanjurmarg.......well, yup Kalyan is quite far frm Kanjurmarg man....never knew it was this far...
1.10AM: i reach kanjurmarg station....thank GOD......so many autowallahs are night soldiers!
1.25PM: welcome to nitie! am so happy, literally....pay the auto chap 80 bucks.....plz keep the change.
1.40AM: update blog......and now, go back to sleep........................azzzzzzzzzzz

better chk out the details frm next time:)......small things do matter, dont they?


Ciao till next time...Harsha

No comments: