(JLT) Just Like That:

Mumbai teaches you new lessons everyday, some good some bad, some with a reason, some without any, but what ever they are you tend to remember them forever. One such incident happened with me this Sunday morning when I was taking a local train from Cherney Road station to Dadar station.

I got my coupons punched from the machine counter and thereafter took a train & got down at Dadar station respectively, Where a Ticket Checker asked for me and my friend’s tickets, I showed him the tickets but as per him the tickets had wrong entry of timing, which showed I had punched them 4 hours before and were no more valied.

I told him the whole panorama, but the irony that thousands make the same set of excuses daily, made him immune to my 'excuse' as he termed it.

After some mintues of 'talk', the TC told us to come to his ticket office crossing the bridge, where this kind of scenario was normally seen. In the backdrop of my my fading patience to their casual reaction, the argument started heating to a higher pitch than the normal. In the mean time many people caught in similair situations came and went, some were guilty some weren’t, but who cares, giving money could be the simplest and in fact the only available option than taking their nonstop ‘bhaashan ‘!

For clarification I asked them to call the other station & figure out about the non functioning machine, but there phone couldn’t connect, so the functional conditions could be well understood.

I asked him about the left over option apart from paying the fine. Filing the complain was all he said and I expected. We thought to go with it. The more i asked him to hurry up with the formalities, the more he opted for casuing delay. The dreaded lethargy, stereotypical of a government employee.

The small room was packed with masters dealing with 2-3 cases simultaneously. A kid is crying, a poor lady begging, a student negotiating and our Ticket checker relaxing.Nothing could work politely or rudely, nor could his nor does mine ego satisfy.

The one liner argument of mine of not checking the date after punching & his station machine not functioning went on.

Though my ego won in the end by hook or crook, but the point still remains the same, who was at the fault? Me who got the right ticket for the right station or the railway authorities whose machines were improper? Would anyone if not me would have taken the ache and torture to fight uselessly for two hours in the mid of a filthy room for an issue like this? Paying 250 was really a good option. And this is what corruption is all about.

I have written my complain to www.consumercomplain.in , hoping when live moving authorities couldn’t listen, may be a mail could.And this is what optimism is all about.