Approximately correct, precisely wrong
I was returning to Chennai along with my friend in Cheran express. Lucky me got Side upper - A 5′9.5″ guy should’ve done some real punniyam in last incarnation to get side upper berth in trains. Notwithstanding side upper, i was sleeping quite well when my friend who was in side lower woke me up.
He:’Dei, ticket edu’
Me: ‘Nee eppo da TTE aane?’
He: Vennai oru chinna confusion.. ticket edu mudalla!
Only then I woke up fully to see another young guy standing beside him.
The Summary of the matter was this: We had tickets for berths 39 and 40 and were snoring to our hearts content. The train had reached Erode by then when this new chap who boarded there came up with a ticket for berth 39. No wonder my friend got worried.
Now, we can see IRCTC’s infamous ‘Service unavailable’ page everyday during tatkal hours, but to say IRCTC gives two tickets for the same berth might be a stretch. So I was just breaking my head in half sleep with two tickets in hand, both for berth 39.
Then my friend sorted out.
“Hello, inge parunga train Erode la scheduled departure time is 00:07 which is the next day. Neenga nethiku ticket vechirukeenga”
To his credit,the young chap was smart enough and nice enough to realize his mistake quick and acknowledge it.The TTE was kind enough to recognize the issue and give him a berth elsewhere. I’ve seen some old folks stating adamantly what their ticket is the ‘most validest’, or whatever. I’ve seen the same thing happen so many times that I thought I should write a post about it.
Rule of thumb: When you are boarding a train around in the night,its better to verbalize it as the ‘previous day’s night’.
For e.g A ticket for 19th Oct for a train which departs at 00.30 AM is the ticket for 18th Night.
I wish the IRCTC folks print the same in the tickets. But then wishes are wishes and those who are smart wish less and plan more.
Idhuku dhaan periyavanga anaike sonnanga, ‘it’s always better to be approximately correct than precisely wrong’
PS:
October 25th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Yeah, its high time that websites start printing stuff more intelligently and usefully. One website I can think of immediately is Expedia. They were little smarter in printing the tickets. They provided source and destination in your local timings and in foreign country local timings, especially mentioning the time in an useful way — Sat night or Sun early morning etc.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:48 am
One of my friends had booked a ticket from secunderabad to madras on a sunday evening(to return from madras) instead of booking a ticket the other way around. He realized this only a day before and had to make alternate arrangements. These kinds of things happen. Even if irctc prints this, people would find ingenious methods to forget things.. :). Nice post and a nice title.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:42 am
gopi,
cool. i have not used expedia till now.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:45 am
manikandan,
Last week one of my friend did the same. He booked a ticket from chennai to trichy when he wanted the other way
I agree but if we really care, we can bring down such mistakes drastically with better design. I think too many people are goofing up too often….