This year's Dasara holiday was on a Friday at my workplace. I realized it late that it's a long weekend and I had to book tickets to go home.
Well it's not really that late I thought. I still had 17 days and opened the ticket reserving portal only to notice that the train had tickets in waiting list. I decided to test my luck by booking them anyway. The going away ticket had longer waiting list than coming back.
During that 17 days I checked the status of my ticket. I was sure that the going away ticket will not be confirmed because of the long list. I decided I would just board the train and deal with it there. As the date approached the going away ticket's waiting list went down and my hopes went up but at the end the ticket did not get confirmed.
Instead of paying a fine by boarding the train, I decided to travel by bus at the last moment. I chose the wrong bus to travel even after several warnings from my dad. He had specifically asked me to board an express bus but I had already missed them. I had to travel nearly 9 hours to reach home which usually takes 5:30 hours to reach.
Finally I was home. The celebration went great. The weekend went by in a blink of an eye.
I soon realized that the coming back tickets were also still in waiting list. It was a festive time and I got to know that there was no chance that the tickets would be confirmed. It was a night train and I was pretty sure I won't be able to go to work if I don't get a proper berth and sleep during the journey.
I decided to leave early. By early I meant Sunday morning. I hoped that there will not be much crowd and I could travel by unreserved coach in the morning train.
But my hopes went in vain.
I was shocked to see that the station was crowded at 5:30 am in the morning. Everybody had made the plan I had made and this was the end result.
My dad was with me. The train came 40 minutes late. The station became further crowded. The chances of getting a seat seemed impossible. Thanks to my dad, I managed to get a seat. He went on the wrong side to board the train and fought with the people to save the seat for me. There were many such father - daughter duos like us in the station. All the fathers were fighting to save seats for their daughters.
My father bid me goodbye and the journey began. The train was crowded and many people were standing. There were so many complaining that the train was supposed to start from this place and they could have had seats.
Overtime due to exhaustion, there were fights among people. They are all well dressed and you would imply that they have good manners. However all that was down the drain in the train.
It was an experience to learn from. We could see how human behavior changes in different situations. Since I had a seat, I was able to analyze them. However if I was one among them, I would be here writing complaints about bad trains and uncultured behavior among people.
I decided to book tickets a month in advance after that.