(This story appeared in The Times of India, Mumbai edition on 15 May 1997)
A family of four travelling with a six-month-old baby and having two berths reserved for their journey from Kurla Terminus to Ratnagiri spends the night crouched in a single seat. No, it is not because their berths have been taken over by the `unreserved.' In fact the middle berth has not even been opened;
the family is ignorant of how it works. They make best of the single berth they have access to.
Such scenes are common in the recently introduced Konkan Railway. Having no previous exposure to rail travel, people of Konkan remain ignorant about trains, even as they explore the pleasures of travelling to their hometowns by train.
Earlier, the only means of going home involved an uncomfortable journey in a cramped state transport (ST) bus, which meandered precariously through the ghats.
The ignorance of passengers settled in Mumbai and going to their villages in Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Malvan and other places like Goa, is at times amusing, if not surprising. ``One person came with the photocopy of his ticket. When I asked him for the original ticket, he said it was kept in safe custody at home. What do we say to such people?'' asked a ticket collector (TC).
``I booked our tickets a month in advance. And yet, our seats are far apart. You must have sold our tickets to others charging more money,'' a middle-aged woman on her way to Sawantwadi, yelled at a TC. The young TC unable to reply in her language mumbled, ``I do not know anything about reservations. I get the chart only when I come to the station. Please don't yell at me like this.''
Another TC faced the wrath of passengers as he collected the reservation charge from those who got their waitlisted tickets confirmed. ``These people do not know what a waitlisted ticket means. For them, the fact that they have paid for four seats and the ticket mentions four waitlisted numbers is enough. One passenger accused me of indulging in malpractice when I collected the Rs 15 reservation charge from him. He did not realise that I was giving him a perfectly valid receipt,'' the TC said.
``How do you expect them to know the nitty-gritties of train journey, when these folks have never travelled by train before. Give them some more time and soon they will be veterans in train travelling,'' said a regular traveller Sanjay Marathe.
It may seem unbelievable, but for this humble crowd, simple things such as finding the right compartment, climbing on the upper berths or learning how much luggage to carry seem awesome.
``Often TCs find passengers with confirmed reservations travelling in the general compartment. They tell them to go to their compartments and enjoy the comforts there instead of travelling cramped in the crowd,'' a Konkan Railway spokesperson remarked.
Another TC recalled that an old woman was so scared of falling from a higher berth that she would not allow even her family members to clamber up. Only when her son told her he had paid extra to avail of the luxury of lying down did she allow him to use the berth.
Despite their inexperience, Konkanis seem all too eager to experiment with the `luxuries' of train travel. All trains on the route are running to capacity.
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