So it is not so often happens to travel in Train. Mostly
once or twice a quarter kind of experience I get these days. It came this time
a little early. Was traveling to Howrah from Jamalpur station. Jamalpur is one
very beautiful city in India, with world class infrastructure and ITC's state
of the art cigarette factory. The city have another industry that makes world class gun and sell it to the world. The climate is no less than any city of
Switzerland. Duh, I don't know how much lie a man can speak when it comes to
explaining his "In Laws" place.
So the context here is not date with same old young Wife
but with ageing and growing beautiful Indian Railways.
How it feels when you see a station cleaner than even
thought off is beyond the explanation. My marriage is as old as this
"Nationalist" government and so is the time I am traveling to
Jamalpur. Every time I have seen this station and its platform, it is getting
cleaner than last time. What behavioural changes observed in these time is
shift of Rail Employees thought to justify what they are meant for. Cleaning
was happening in Platform on a very pattern based frequency. What hasn't
changed was every time they broom, they collect lots of garbage. Means the
garbage box was used mostly by Rail Employees and not so often by the
passengers. What if the station has not been clean and passengers would have to
jump over garbage to catch the train. I think the civilised Citizen of India
would have thrashed the government and the Railways Ministry so bad that would
even has raised brow on government making money from our taxes by doing corruption
and not service. Irrespective whether they pay taxes or not.
Out of that "Keeda" in me, I met the Station
Master there and have expressed my happiness for keeping the station so very
clean. He was so happy to hear, and said that I am the first person in his 2.5
year tenure in this station who came to congratulate than complain. When I
asked for the comment / complaint book to write this, he said that its
complaint book and not book of appreciation as we hardly get. I said that I
really don't have complaints regarding the cleanliness and want to write that
but at the same time have complain that ever since this government is in power,
I hardly have heard train coming on time.
So after a wait of around 3 hour, my train came. I went
to my designated berth. To my surprise, the compartment was filled with
unauthorized occupants, so called "Local Passengers" traveling till
Bhagalpur or so. Somehow I managed to atleast sit till their destination
arrives. What next was usage of social media to kill time. So I opened Twitter
and went to @RailMinIndia handle. Raised my concern regarding the situation I am in.
In 7 min, I got a reply on that and in the next station two uniformed person
came to fix my issue and let me stretch my leg on my berth. I thanked them and
felt pity about those full compartment or perhaps full bogie "Local
Passengers". Even my fellow "authorised" passengers thanked me.
While I have made discomfort for the local passengers, what if they were me and
I was them? Perhaps would have traveled with them as second class citizen,
which we at times often experience.
I thought that after all these experiences, my date with
Indian Railways is now going to be smooth and memorable. Huh, but few more was
planned by surprise me and write longer.
This train was coming from Gaya so the linens were being
used by passengers boarded in Gaya and would have alighted in between. I asked
attendant to provide me fresh linen, he said that the bed cover lying on the
berths has not been used by the previous passengers for much longer period of
time and why can't I use them. He gave all the irrelevant logic to let me use
soiled linens. When I insisted to use fresh one, he finally gave a packed one.
I think to all these incidents during my this date with
the Indian Railways, what came out very prominently is that things would not
change until and unless we do not change. Government again is the bunch of
people coming from within us only. If that are showing signs of changes, why
can't we! How much time we require to be the change from being the problem.
Anyways my date with Railways has always been
adventurous and this Journey also have lived up to the expectations, without
being exception.
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