Continuing the previous posts related to my bangalore to hyderabad ticket woes, finally it was august 14th, the day on which we were supposed to leave from bangalore. And as expected before, it was a day full of suspense, tension and lot of drama 🙂 . Nothing was clear till the last moment. Coming to how it all went through………..
I was checking our ticket status from office and till 3.50 pm i.e, 2 hours 20 minutes before the departure time, the charts were not yet prepared. I thought it was time for me to leave office so that if by any chance the tickets would get confirmed, I should be able to make it to the station in time. And being a long weekend traffic at marathahalli was hopeless. Somehow I managed to reach home by 4.20 pm and still the charts were not prepared. I asked the other two of my friends who were supposed to travel along with me to start. I was checking till 4.45 pm and still no sign of charts being prepared 🙁 . So, finally I left home at 4.45 pm and took an auto to the railway station. And I told 3 people to keep checking my pnr status. I was getting continuous updates from them that still the charts were not prepared and on top of that the traffic was too much. It was 5.30 pm now, 50 minutes before departure and it still says charts not prepared 🙁 . And when I had covered more than half of the distance, I get a call from my friend that the tickets were not confirmed and he is not coming to station. Immediately I asked the auto driver to go to kalasipalyam so that I can try for some bus tickets. Then the third friend almost reached the railway station and then I informed her that tickets were not confirmed. So, she asked the driver to go back to her place and I reached kalasipalyam. There I was trying for bus tickets and the situation was so bad that even the place in driver’s cabin was sold out and then they were selling tickets for sitting on a stool in the bus 😯 . Then I got hold of some agent and he said he will try for tickets and that’s when I get a call from the first friend that two of our tickets have been confirmed. It was 5.45 pm then and train was at 6.20 pm.
This is where the real fun started 🙂 . I was at kalasipalyam and had to reach majestic. Another one had to start from his guest house in koramangala and the third one was still in auto going towards koramangala from majestic. I just told them to somehow make it to cantonment station atleast (as the train would reach cantonment by 6.40 pm, they would have another 20 mins) and by that time I can talk to the TC if he would allow 3 of us to travel as we already had 2 confirmed tickets. I took an auto and just told him to somehow take me to the station in the fastest way he can. The station wasn’t too far from that place but there was too much of traffic on the way. Finally I reached the station just 5 minutes before the departure time. By then it started to rain also and I was literally running to catch the train. Finally reached the platform and there was a TC standing over there surrounded by some 12-15 people trying to get a confirmed berth 🙂 . I told him our status and he asked me to get in and we can see what can be done later. So, I told my friends that we can get in and they just need to reach cantonment station in time. Finally, both of them reached cantonment just in time to catch the train. Both of them had their own adventures in the auto 🙂 . Somehow, three of us made it.
Now the tension was about what would the TC say 🙁 . We were eagerly waiting for him and that guy turned up after some 2 hours. He didn’t even care to see if the third passenger was there or not. He just saw that two tickets were confirmed and that’s it. He says if you people can adjust, you can continue. That was some relief to us. He was too busy to say or do anything more. Actually this third person’s ticket is supposed to be cancelled automatically once the charts have been prepared. All the tickets that are booked online and in waiting list after the charts are prepared, will be cancelled automatically and the money would be refunded back to the account. Its almost ticketless travel and on normal occasions the fine would be around 500 or 600 rupees 🙂 . But this day the situation being too bad, the TC didn’t even care about all this. Now, we don’t know if that money would be refunded back or not as two of the tickets were confirmed. Whatever be it we were ready to pay the fine also and were happy that we are going to hyderabad somehow 😀 .
Now comes the worst part of the journey. Two of us sharing the same upper berth 🙁 . I was sleeping in the same posture for almost 7 hours 🙁 and by 5 am in the morning I felt as if my back is going to break. That’s when I woke up the other guy and got down. I couldn’t sleep properly for the whole night and on top of that my back was paining like hell 🙁 . And then the news is that train is late by more than one hour. This was the only thing pending 🙁 . Whenever I travelled by this train, it reached on time always and this was the first time it got delayed. Looks like whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way (perfect scenario of murphy’s law).
And finally I reached hyderabad. Never felt so happy coming here. I feel like I had achieved something this time and that’s true infact. Managing to reach hyderabad in such bad conditions is a real achievement for me 😀 .
aaaaaaaaaah .. finally got to hyd .. it was an adventurous trip with things changing constantly ..
As the charts were not prepared even before 2 hours of the time of departure of the train, I had no option but to start from my place to make it to the station if at all the tickets would get confirmed. Also, I was almost sure that they would get confirmed as the friend who said it would get confirmed by Emergency Quota was some 99 odd % sure.
I was looking for an auto to get to the station and it started drizzling. The auto waala said it would cost me Rps.150(on meter Rps.85) as there would be heavy traffic to get to the station. I had no other option as I knew how it would be if it starts raining. So, I started to the station at around 4:30 and I had good 2 hours time to reach as the train was at 6:20. The traffic was really bad and on top of that it started raining like anything 🙁 . Finally, somehow we were very close to the station and it was around 5:20 when I get a call from Rakesh saying that the tickets were not confirmed. I didn’t know whether to go to the station anyways and check the status myself or to go back and try for some buses. I felt the first option was useless as there was no point in going and making sure that the tickets were in fact not confirmed. The auto waala said he knew some travel agent where he got a confirmed ticket for someone for that day only the previous evening. So, I asked him to take me to that place but that meant going all the way back to my place :'( .
Now, we were almost close to my place and I get a call from Rakesh again saying that 2 out of the 3 tickets were confirmed and he didn’t know what to do. My ticket was the last one and it was not confirmed :D. But, suddenly it occurred to him that as we had 2 confirmed tickets we could still go and asks me to come back to the station. It was 5:50 and the auto waala refuses to go back as there was no way we could reach there by 6:20. So, I decided to go back home and look for my other options 🙂 . Now, again Rakesh calls back asking me to get to cantonment as train would get there by 6:40. Auto Driver says it would take at least half an hour to cantonment and we had like 40mins and he agrees to go there. Even this area was unusually crowded. At one particular signal, we got a chance to go only the 3rd time when the lights went green. Auto waala was also tensed and was constantly asking for the status. We were hoping that the train would get delayed. It then started raining heavily again and he comments .. “mee adhrushtam baaga ledhu eeroju 🙂 ” . I get a message that the train started and then within few mins that the train stopped again. Lot of drama. Amith calls and says he might not be able to make it as he was some half n hour away from the place and traffic was bad. Auto waala was constantly updating me about the number of signal’s left and he was really speeding on a few of them. Finally, I got to the station around 6:35 or so. The auto waala felt that he should be paid at least 400/- but said its up to you. It was really nice of him. I gave him 350 as I did not have enough change and told him that I would pay the rest later and he agreed to that :D. He also helped me with the luggage. Looks like he got his share of entertainment/adventure for the day 🙂 .
The train was supposed to come on the second platform and I did not find an over bridge and I had no option but to cross the tracks. This was the first time ever I did that in a proper station 🙂 . The train arrived about 5 to 7 mins after I got there. I got into the train and within couple of mins even Amith joined us. Rest of the story on the blog 🙂 .
As I was the ticket less traveler, these two hopeless people were planning to get me off the train as they would get proper berths 🙂 .
But finally you got a free ride 🙂 in the train. No ticket and no fine as well.
Forgot to mention…….something good in the middle of all this chaos was that, our tickets got confirmed just because an additional coach was added in the last moment and the best part was that this berth did not have those side middle berths as mentioned by me in one of my previous posts. I think it was some older coach and that was some relief to us 🙂 .
First friend who travelled from gh @ kor to cantonment… Such a torrid time,amidst heavy downpour 😀 !!!