At the Reservation Counter

(I am travelling by train after a long long time... I'm trying to recollect when I last did, and I can't. Anyway, I went to reserve my ticket to  Mumbai.. -- Yeah, actually went physically, instead of doing it online as I was advised to do, simply because I am still so old school about matters like actually having a ticket in my hand on board the train, since I am travelling alone -- ..Anyway, as I was saying, on my way to the railway reservation counter, which I went to early in the morning, hoping to be first in what I expected to be a long, interminable queue, I expected to spend a good part of the day there, for which I had armed myself with a book (how old school is that!), but to my pleasant surprise, I found the counters almost empty of queues, jostling people.. And my work was done in 5 minutes! I think the reason is that most people have started booking their tickets online, plus, at least in Bangalore, the railways have opened a number of reservation counters at various points in the city, thus solving the hassles of overcrowding. Whatever may be the reason, I was reminded of a short story I had written years back about my experience at a reservation counter.. Here it is.)

She was beautiful. I was a young man infatuated by her looks.

Long queues snaking towards pigeon hole ticket counters. A sizzling day in May. Asphalt melting, the pavements baking, outside, in the mid morning glare. The fans overhead desultorily whirring sending down waves of oven hot air. The large railway reservation hall, usually airy, stifling, jammed with people. The whole city seemed to be in a state of exodus to escape the scorching summer heat. 

I was at the end of the queue at counter number 17. She, a little ahead of me at the next one, at counter number 16. She caught my eye instantly the moment I entered. Thirty-ish, curvy, hair cropped short, striking. She looked out of place there. She held a glossy magazine to her lipsticked face, with her red varnish tipped hands. Occasionally looking up to check the progress of the line. The lines were creeping along at a snail’s pace. 

The old man stood in front of her. Limp grey hair clinging to the sides of his scalp, the top, a patch of brown skin, shiny with sweat. His cadaver like body stooped, belying his height. His thin-lipped mouth hanging open in a black void, displaying the few straggling yellowing teeth left. His eyes lusterless, the pupils hazy brown. He shifted from one foot to the other as he waited in the line. 

The heat grew in intensity as the day wore on. The old man slowly licked his thin dry lips with a thick greyish pink tongue. She continued reading her magazine, turning the pages slowly. The dark ends of her hair turning into damp curls as droplets of sweat broke out on her delicate skin at the nape of her neck. I toyed with the idea of approaching her and making contact with some innocuous remark. But dismissed the thought. A snub was all I’d get, I could tell. 

The large round clock on the wall said 11 o’clock. We had hardly moved forward. Computerization was supposed to speed things up, but things seemed to be as slow as the days of tickets being punched out after being painstakingly handwritten upon. Efficiency and speed were simply alien concepts to the Indian railway’s bureaucratic mindset, I fumed cantankerously. 

Despite the heavy rush at the booking counters I could see several shut down. What did these guys lack? Manpower? Here? In India? Unless they felt the bite of competition they would never change their ways. Privatization was the only answer to getting better service. Ramesh, my roommate was right. We were in the fourth year of Engineering, the exams being unexpectedly postponed, I was trying to get a ticket to go home. But looking at the size of the rush I wondered if it was a futile endeavor. 

The glass sliding doors behind kept opening and shutting as more people poured in from the heat outside into the furnace inside. I longed for a glass of the iced pink water melon juice being sold outside, but I dared not leave my place in the queue. I had seen angry squabbles arise out of people going out and trying to regain their place again at such lines. With the mercury tipping at 44 degrees Celsius, the utter weariness of standing unending hours, tempers were bound to be frayed, bonhomie destined to be non-existent. 

And there were people everywhere. Everyone trying to get somewhere. Some were bunched at the large board which had the names, and the departure/arrival times of various trains. Groups of people hunched over the little counters against the walls, hastily scribbling into their little reservation slips. Some stood huddled, heads thrown back, staring at the monitors flashing pink, green, blue reservation information. And of course the masses of people who hung on stoically in the hardly moving queues. 

And the hands of the clock unhurriedly ticked on. And the heat increased. The sweat poured. The fans turned ineffectually. She closed her magazine and began fanning herself with it. I was sure she smelled of expensive perfume. Despite the heat and the sweat she looked cool and collected. A sleeveless white blouse over slim cut jeans emphasized her delicious contours. My eyes drank her in. It was like drinking the cool iced watermelon drink that I could not drink. 

The old man, pale lemon coloured shirt hanging loosely on his bony frame, shuffled forward a step clutching his reservation slip in his gnarled hand. His scrawny neck sticking forwards a little. His mouth still absently agape. His peering eyes fixed on the remote glassed ticket counter ahead. One hour crawled by. And then another. Inching forward, she had by now come to the mid point to the ticket counter. A broad grey granite pillar stood beside her and the old man now. The old man sagged against it. I could feel his weariness creeping in through my skin. 

I wondered, a little irritated, what he was doing in that long queue, in this heat. Didn’t he have anyone with him? Didn’t he know that there was a senior citizen’s counter? I craned my head to look, yes, it was almost empty. I wondered if I should go and tell him. Then decided to mind my business. Anyway he probably had somebody with him. Probably just standing in for a short while. 

I watched her instead. I saw her make a sudden face as she saw the ticketing clerk put a cardboard sign saying “Closed for Lunch” against the glass partition and walk away. It was crazy. Here were all these people, tired, standing for hours in the heat, just to get a ticket, and these guys were actually happily tripping off for a half hour lunch break! Couldn’t they have a rotation system so that the counters were manned 24 hours? At least in peak seasons like this? These guys really treat us people like dirt. 

And why do we take it? Why doesn’t everybody in this hall rise and revolt at this kind of lousy treatment being dished out by these guys who are supposed to be at our service? 

The old man blinked rapidly and turned towards her as if to say something. She moved her face away and opened her magazine again. The old man turned back again and looked a little nonplussed at the closed ticket counter. The half hour plodded by agonizingly slowly. Everyone hung on with stoic determination in their places. 

The clerks returned behind the counters, looking replete. They tapped on their keyboards and the lines began inching forward again. A quarrel broke out at a queue nearby. Somebody had jumped the line. He said all he wanted was to ask a question of the ticketing clerk. The men in the line would have none of it. Go to the enquiry counter he was told. But the man insisted it would only take a moment. Three or four men, eyes smouldering hate, stepped out threateningly. The man retreated back to his place. A lull ensued. The heat smothered. The lines inched on. 

She opened her bag and extracted a flimsy tissue paper and dabbed her neck and face with it. The old man was panting a little. There were only four or five people in front of him to the counter now. His eyes were fixed on the glass counter. A half hour dragged by. At last he was there. At the counter. 

He grabbed the granite lip of the counter as if hanging on for dear life and pushed his slip in through the semi-circle cut into the glass, tentatively. The clerk impatiently grabbed the slip and looked at it frowning. After a moment . . . “Nampally?” he said, “This train goes to Hyderabad . . Do you want to go to Hyderabad?” 

It was difficult to hear through the thick glass partition. The old man gave a desperate look at the clerk, turned a cupped ear to him and said in a cracked voice, “Eh . . . What?” 

The clerk gave him an irritated look and shouted, “Where do you want to go old man?” Looking confused, the old man gave a frightened little start and said in a quavering voice, “I want to go to Nampally . . I have written it there . .” Pointing a withered finger at the slip in the clerk’s hand. 

“ I know what you’ve written here old man, I can read,” the clerk said belligerently shaking the reservation slip at the old man’s face. “You’ve written Nampally,” he continued in a loud voice, “This train goes to Hyderabad . . Do you want to go to Hyderabad?” 

The old man looked perplexed. He began stuttering, mumbling in his confusion . . “I don’t . . know . .” he said in a thin small voice. 

“If YOU don’t know old man then I don’t know too,” saying which he shoved the reservation slip back towards the old man. The clerk reached his hand towards her for her slip, ignoring the old man who grasped his slip and looked helplessly once at it, then at the clerk. She passed her slip to the clerk. 

The clerk looked at it and still in a loud voice said, “Which date? You haven’t put in the date.” 

She replied in a quiet voice, “Any earliest available date.” 

“The earliest available date is one month from now,” said the clerk. 

She said yes that was ok. The clerk began punching the keys at the computer. The old man stood quietly beside her, his mouth open a little wider, his eyes staring at the clerk. 

She spoke to him. She asked, “Where do you want to go, uncle?” 

The old man gave a start and looked at her and, still confused, involuntarily said, “Eh . .” 

She repeated her question a little louder, “Where do you want to travel to?” 

“I want to go to Nampally. My son lives there,” replied the old man. 

A man from behind said, “Nampally is near Hyderabad. Tell him to change the name of the destination to Hyderabad. He must get off at Hyderabad, then take a bus to Nampally.” 

She said, “Uncle change the name to Hyderabad,” and when he looked at her questioningly, she explained why. The old man gave her an embarrassed little smile of comprehension. Pulling out a fountain pen from the pocket of his shirt he laboriously changed the name on the slip of paper. 

The clerk spoke to her in a softer tone, “That will be 735 rupees madam.” She opened her bag, taking out a wad of notes, started counting out the sum. The clerk quietly reached his palm out to the old man for his reservation slip. The old man gave it to him. She gave her money to the clerk, took her ticket, and walked out into the summer heat.

 My line was slower. It took me a little longer to reach my counter. The answer was the same. No tickets to be got at short notice – I walked out ticketless.