A typical WL travel in Indian Railways:

Last week I had been out to attend a cousin's marriage, n though my ongoing travel ticket was
confirmed, the return ticket was under the dreaded Waiting List(WL), and unfortunately did not
get confirmed, even though I'd booked it almost a month ahead of the travel.
Itz been a similar story now for almost about 3 times in the recent past 4 me.....You request the TTE @ the platform before boarding the train with your WL number, about the possibility of getting a berth!!!@#$??#$ N his typical response is 'Mostly not possible' or 'Very less chance' or 'Sir, there are many people who have a similar case, what can I do?'. And then when we ask if we can board any compartment as of now, he says 'yeah..yeah get into any one now, we'll see later on'.

Then its the horrible tiring part, where in you have to stand with your luggage @ the extremes of a compartment :-), mostly besides the doors of the compartment......thinking if you'd get a berth for the night?? and then there are some other people too who are your 'feeling-a-like' types...a start of a little interaction with one person n then another....n wow you've made some friends for your life (this is the most coolest part of such a journey......n by no chance a couple of those @ min would be from the software industry.....and may be from your own organization.....this typically and frequently happens in the south indian routes).

Time jus seems to fly off as we discuss anything n everything from the 'canvas of possibilities' :-) .....and then our TTE sir makes a grand entry like a Sant guru with hoardes of disciples behind him :-); these are all the people with WL tickets, humming like bees aroung nectar. N then we ask him, if there's any chance for us....n he says 'yeah you can go to S1. You might get a berth there...most of the people would get down @ xyz station which comes @ around 9:30 PM'. We take a deep breath of relief....(not knowing what's in store for us further late in the night....as if these problems till now, were not enough!!).....n ok, so our army of WL'ites moves towards the S1 coach, as if literally gesturing 'ATTACK S1'!!

Yeah people do get down @ the station and the bogie seems to be vacant now, n so we help ourselves n occupy the vacant seats :-), but then a few people do board the train from that sation as well, N we keep praying 'Please, please not on this seat' as we eagerly n desperately try to ward off all evils (all those passengers with confirmed tickets in that bogie), because we hear from fellow WL'ites that this is the major station in the night, after which the train has a halt only in the morning....so if we secure these berths for ourselves, our night would pass off without troubles!! But it would never happen, as long as these certain TTEs (who are a Nuisance sometimes) are present in the railways....

Now we are comfortably seated in our seats, waiting for the TTE to come, so that we can get our tickets confirmed with the berth we've captured [as if we've conquered a fort in our Jung :-)]....n then somebody says, 'well we would better sleep now as it is too late, rather than wait for the TTE.....whenever he comes we'll sort this issue out....n everybody feels its right, n so finally we are comfortably lying down on our berths, n doze off sometime later due to the tiring journey..........

Then suddenly we wake up @ around midnight with loud quarrels coming in from adjacent set of seats.....yeah its a couple of TTEs, but both are in a drunken state, n hence without a stable control over themselves!! I speak to myself, 'How could these guys do this when they are performing their duties??', and certainly don't find any logical answer....and when I go to that place, I find its all like a comedy of errors, and drama going on with these couple of nuisance guys.....One has climbed on to the top berth with his legs hanging down and the other guy on seeing this 'Oye! Take your legs up man....oye my order take your legs up'......and then the other guy after repeated pampering does move his legs up, and this guy down here says 'Haan!! Good boy...good boy', and I still wonder what the hell is going on here??

Then enters a TTE number 3, who seems to be fine and in control, and when we tell him that we've got berths n request him to confirm our tickets, he says 'What sir?? hmmm..what...first of all you are not supposed to travel in this bogie with WL tickets...bcoz this is a bogie with a quota, n only people from xyz station can be accomodated here'. We feel as if beating him up black and blue....afterall there are vacant berths and its his duty to acomodate WL passengers in these berths....but he's behaving as if the whole of Railways was his property!! I initially make him understand, but when he doesn't seem to be perturbed, I unleash a set of fiery dialogues [in a Nana Patekar like style :)] and finally he agrees to give us our berths.... :) but not before the time is now around 1:30 AM in the night.....We finally go back to our berths and in no time fall asleep again.

Come morning, n we've reached our destinations and itz the time to take contacts and bid goodbye to all those set of new friends, some of whom go on to become very good pen-pals of yours in the future.... :-).

Still wonder.....how this keeps happening so frequently in a WL travel in Indian Railways (the world's largest carrier of its kind!!).....N jus console myself saying that this would be the last time!!!.....May be.....May be not.....Letz see.