Another railway incident with me. I was with my wife at Bhopal railway station in summer of 2012. My wife was not feeling well because of the heat wave. I had e-ticket 1, 2 on wait list. And it was not cleared as the train arrived. I lost all hope to board the train. I tried talking to a middle-aged TT who got off the train. He was looking quite busy, with a list of printed out PNRs in his hand. He paused for 10 seconds and listened to me and wife. He said you would get a refund as you have e-ticket but there is no way you could board this train without a ticket. So go to the ticket window and book a sleeper class
Wait listed ticket and you could get a seat in AC if someone failed to board the train. So there was glimpse of hope. I looked at the queue on my left hand side and it was too big to clear in 10 minutes. He asked me for my destination (Pune it was). By looking at our situation and sickness of my wife , He said he would get the ticket for me from the back window. I handed over 3 500 rupees note and waited for him. With each minute passing, I thought I was duped and I was cursing my decision to trust him. Train blew its final whistle, I was giving up then I felt a tap on my shoulder, looked back to find him handing me over the tickets and 1 500 rupees note and some change. Told me son you are all set to board this train. He had also talked to the TT on the train about my wife's health. In my mind I was thinking now he would open his mouth to ask for his cut for doing the ticket for us. He just smiled and said he would have done the same for his son too. We were about to be in tears. This incident got me thinking "India is changing".
(We reached safely to Pune and got seats in 2-tier AC 4 hours from destination without paying a penny in bribe).
Wait listed ticket and you could get a seat in AC if someone failed to board the train. So there was glimpse of hope. I looked at the queue on my left hand side and it was too big to clear in 10 minutes. He asked me for my destination (Pune it was). By looking at our situation and sickness of my wife , He said he would get the ticket for me from the back window. I handed over 3 500 rupees note and waited for him. With each minute passing, I thought I was duped and I was cursing my decision to trust him. Train blew its final whistle, I was giving up then I felt a tap on my shoulder, looked back to find him handing me over the tickets and 1 500 rupees note and some change. Told me son you are all set to board this train. He had also talked to the TT on the train about my wife's health. In my mind I was thinking now he would open his mouth to ask for his cut for doing the ticket for us. He just smiled and said he would have done the same for his son too. We were about to be in tears. This incident got me thinking "India is changing".
(We reached safely to Pune and got seats in 2-tier AC 4 hours from destination without paying a penny in bribe).
