‘ Tatkal ‘ means on the spot! This is a word that has it’s origins in Sanskrit. In India various government bodies have adopted this word as theirs such as the passport offices and Indian railways. My story has to do with the Indian Railways.
The family wanted to go on a holiday to Tamil Nadu and the tickets were still on waitlist ( for over two months ). The Indian Railways has this system called ‘ Tatkal’ wherein you can book your tickets a day prior to the date of departure at an extra charge. This is a ridiculous system as tickets that have been booked well in advance remain on the waitlist and the tickets that have been booked in ‘Tatkal ‘ get confirmed out of turn.
On 07May12 at 0330hrs the Missus and I landed up at Chembur station to get in line for the ‘ Tatkal ‘booking. 0330hrs!! you might ask, yes that is the time you need to get there as you have a window of approx 20 minutes before the limited seats are taken off the system. You have two queues, one is for the gents and the other is for ladies and senior citizens. The queues themselves build up by the minute and when the windows open up at 0800hrs, the gents queue has about 100 persons and the ladies and senior citizen’s queue has about 25 persons.
Once the Missus was safely ensconced in her slot in the queue, and had battened down for the four and half hour wait ( she was the third person in the queue ), the restless person that I am decided to take a walk around Chembur Station at this ungodly hour. Everything is quiet around the station, and what would normally be a bustling place is now deserted.
At 0400hrs you get the first gaggle of newspaper boys assembling immediately outside the station. We are very used to just opening our front doors in the morning and finding a newspaper tucked into the doorhandle. But have we ever stopped to wonder how the distribution network works?
By 0415hrs the place outside the station is a hive of frenetic activity. The first newspaper vans have made their appearance, these vans are contracted to the individual printing presses that print the papers, be it The Times of India or the Hindustan Times etc. As each individual van stops the boys gather around the van and the person inside the van picks up individual bundles neatly packed in plastic and labeled with the individual names of the distributors, I heard familiar names such as Sebastian ( the distributor at my old home ) and Balaji ( my current distributor ). By 0445hrs all the vans have dropped their loads and moved on. Now over the next 30 minutes the individual paper boys assembles his load as per his route. The entire 600feet in front of the station is taken over by the boys assembling their loads. There must have been at least 100 of them. By 0515hrs all the boys have disappeared leaving behind only the debris of their packages, which add to the trash of the previous day.
At around 0430hrs just as the newspaper boys activity was picking up I decided to continue my walk around, I saw Mumbai Toys what was formerly Bombay Toys….probably trying to be politically correct !! The milk vans only made their appearance around 0500hrs.
Inside the compound of the of the station dominated by billboards divided equally between Jewellers, English Speaking classes and Computer classes….probably high on aspirational value for the middle class teenagers of today,there were 4 youth sitting on a ‘ Khatta ‘ and drinking whisky as though they owned the place, they were also using foul language loudly. I wondered how could they be so comfortable here? It would only be later that I figured they were touts.
At around 0515hrs I felt a rather familiar feeling…..the need to take a dump! So I let the Missus know that I was going home and would be back in 30 minutes. No sooner had I completed the dump when my phone rang and the Missus asked me to come to the station immediately. It turns out the lady who was in second position in the line was also a tout and she was punching the lady in front of her, both of them had slept on the platform. The Missus had intervened, but she was nervous. She also asked me to call her sister, which I did.
By now the touts had finshed their round of whisky and were having tea, and soon they would be in the line. There were no cops in sight, they would only appear around 0630hrs. And what an appearance, the cops were checking each passenger’s booking and forms and they ruthlessly threw each tout out of the line by the scruff of the neck. The lady tout seeing this pretended to faint….
When finally the counters opened at 0800hrs the cops had to almost lathi charge to keep the line under control, the Missus got her tickets by 0805hrs!! That was quick….the wait of four and half hours for a 2 minute transaction….this is India!!