Instant corruption

I stood in the queue that evening, trying to bribe the Indian Railway for a seat on the Shatabdi Express. For I was also a busybody that day and had to reach Chandigarh urgently. It is not that I will not be paying for my three-hour-long journey on this phoren-ishtyle’ blue train. I will definitely pay them the exorbitant rate. The charges for Shatabdi have been on an ever-increasing spree while the standard has been on a steady decline.Moreover, you are never sure of your safety on the tracks, mainly between Delhi and Chandigarh which have a record number of cracks and creaks with tremendous potential to jeopardise your precious life.

So you pay a big amount for this service. And then if you need ticket at the last moment, pay an extra Rs 50. “It is only 50 bucks, yaar. Why take a punga?”, a businessman friend of mine just brushed aside my fretting and fuming. The question does not lie in the Rs 50, though I would have spent it gleefully on a GI Joe figure for my son. The question lies in the very why’ of it.

And as the tatkal tamasha got unfolded in front of my eyes at the station, my blood really boiled. The tickets under this scheme are available just 45 minutes before the train’s departure. And, mind you, there is a separate counter for this: a room with a window to daylight corruption. And in an effort to be fair, rather pretending to be fair, there is a counter for current reservation too. In any normal circumstances, a certain number of seats is kept aside for current booking. But what I saw at the Delhi station was that the current booking counter remained unmanned for the full 45 minutes when tatkal was being served.

And the people who stood in the current’ queue religiously for some time were told that the person had gone to have tea. That is the beauty of government establishments in India. Whenever there is a person in need knocking on their door, the great Indian tea break begins. So you either wait for the break to be over or seek him out during the recess and provide for his tea. But since at the station you have no time for such extra-curricular activities, you rush to the immediate service’. The all-obliging lady there gives you the ticket in a matter of few minutes, charging Rs 435. You pay, get the ticket and board the train murmuring the last prayer. For you do not know whether you will reach home in one piece or reach at all.

The game is complete in its true sense only when you are inside the train. For you see many empty seats and wonder, why the hell did you pay extra when there was availability of seats! And if for any reason you have to cancel the journey, don’t think that the Railways will pay you back the exorbitant amount. As it is written at the station itself, in block letters: No refund on tatkal ticket. So isn’t it daylight robbery? And mind you, the Indian Railway has this tatkal scheme in about 70 trains. Curiously, I read a small news-item the other day about protests against a rumoured plan to discontinue the tatkal service. A famous quotation came to my mind then: “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”