2200 Km Journey by an Indian Supper Fast Train

Wikipedia

All of a sudden I decided to visit a place called Trissur in the Indian state of Kerala situated at 2230 km away from my residence. I came to know about the available train on the same day. I took a ticket for a berth in a sleeper class. My ticket was on the waiting list serial at 200. In the evening after the final passenger list was prepared I got a confirmed berth. The train's departure was at quarter to twelve midnight from a very obscured station called Shalimar.

After spending some time at the mall near the station. I was caught up in the caption of a food start up to pick a Bengali nonveg meal @99. After having the half stale and tasteless meal I watched the IPL live match till 9 PM.

I arrived at the station at about 9 30 AM. I boarded the train and found two ladies sitting opposite me. One of them was quite elderly. They couldn't speak any language other than Malayali which is Hebrew to me. Anyways I was believed to understand that they were cheated by fake tourist agent. After sometimes another person came to their berth as a Bonafide passenger but the clever woman convinced him that she is the Bonafide passenger, she managed to dominate him by her body language in spite of language barrier. In the meantime two young girls of the same group along with only male member (leader) came to our coupe and he put the girls in the middle berth. Within a few minutes another passenger arrived at the berth as the Bonafide confirm passenger of the berth. Young boy without arguing ask the girls to leave the berth and they left the coach.

The ladies were returning to their native in Kerala after visiting Mayapur ISCON temple. It is very rarely seen Malayali as a devotee of Hare Krishna. However they appeared very hardcor believer of hare krishna. They were continuously busy in their sub vocal chanting with the rosary. They wore tulsi mala in their necks.

It is seen that all berths have two people sleeping except mine. The extra person has either RAC or waitlist ticket. In fact there were 15 people travelling in place for eight people.

I slept on my berth without any disturbance for about an hour or two. Suddenly another lady of the group came with the Ticket Collector and she was offering him money as fine as she was an unauthorised passenger in sleeper class. I understood that all of them were travelling with general class tickets in sleeper class as unauthorised passengers. Each of them were charged a fine of ₹450. In the meantime one passenger occupied the berth of the two ladies and drove them away on the floor.

The train arrived at Balasore at about 3-30AM. I just saw the platform and thought of those days when I stayed there.

As the Train arrived Bhadrak a group of hooligans boarded the train shouting "Ēṭi phām̐kā āchi" means the place is empty. I realised that they will target me. I stretched my legs and hand to cover the entire berth. Still one person tried to sit at the corner of my berth. He was the head of the family of four members. They were also fined.

It is very interesting that once someone is fined he became an authorised passenger of the coach and it became his right to share the space with confirmed passengers. Finally there were 20 people in the coupe. Most of male passengers were smoking bidi (hand made tobacco stick) carelessly though it is strictly prohibited. I have not seen any RPF (Railways Police Force) on both the nights and day time.

This is how a Bonafide passenger is fooled and neglected by Indian Railways. It was mentioned on the ticket that railway recovers only 57% expense from fare. But it didn't mention how much fine or penalty are collected from passengers by ticket collectors.

My second night experience of train journey was even worst.

N.B. Any train's is considered as supper fast if average speed of the train is more than 55 Km per hour excluding waiting time at platform. I forgot to carry my mobile which caused inconvenience.

Thank you for reading my post.