Nightout in Mumbai Central
Hi Guys,
May 14,
The best part of my MBA was perhaps the convocation. Compared to my previous academic engagements this was a very elaborate affair. Apart from wearing the graduation robe and getting the degrees the experience was memorable for the speech given by Anand Mahindra. But before that we actually spent the whole of the morning rehearsing for the event. And the staff members of the IIMs definitely deserve kudos for the way the entire thing was conducted.
Then to add icing to the cake was having Mr. Anand Mahindra as our chief guest. Normally when you have a good speaker you admire him and say wow. But at the end of the speech you usually wont be able to speak for more than a minute about what the person actually said. Its on this count that mahindra scored over all the others speakers I have heard in my life. His speech was rich in content his delivery was perfect. But more than it was as if he was speaking to a plan. It seemed liked a story with a start, a middle and an end. And at the end of it I actually ended up speaking for about 10-15 minutes about what he did say.
I wont bore you with the details but he had numerous anecdotes from his personal life and he articulated his vision for a future for india. The core idea was to have confidence in our abilities to create a future for the country where there would be space for the poorest of the poor. At the end of the speech I felt that it would be a great experience to actually work under someone like him. And I understood the reason for the dynamism the Mahindras have shown in recent times. Its no surprise to hear about the various Mahindra initiatives like bikes, scorpio and the bank and in future only greater things are in store for this company. And I also decided that as soon as I have some money I will start investing in this company :-)
Then my parents were in Bangalore we did some travelling and I also fulfilled my mother's childhood wish of going to the Vrindavan gardens in mysore. It was a opportunity for me to bond with my parents though I did face a few instances where I concluded that parents have an inherent ability the bug the hell out of you :-(
At the end of it all I wanted to do some travelling and catch with some old friends. I had mentioned my plans to my parents but at the very last moment my mother gave some royal sentis about how she wanted me to be with them on the journey back to delhi. I retorted with sentis of my own to wriggle out of the situation. Soon after that I packed my stuff and loaded it on to the train and so that they could chaperone it back to delhi ;-)
The experiences that followed in the next few days was insightful for many reasons. For one I think I started appreciating the differences in the way me and my parents would perform some task. I mean my first stop was Nashik and two hours before the journey I had no clue about how I am going to travel. My father would have planned the entire thing to its last detail and perhaps would have been the first person to get the tickets to that place. In hindsight he would have had a smoother ride but I guess I had much more fun than he ever would :-)
Getting a ticket on some of the trains in india is difficult. In fact some trains like Karnataka express actually have their tickets sold out at least a month in advance. And getting sleeper tickets is actually quite an adventure. But there are loopholes and there are people out there to make the best out this opportunity. Its so happens that there are cancellations at the last moment and who gets that berth is a function of who approaches the TC first. So as soon as I got to the ticket counter I encountered guys who told me that they could help me get confirmed ticket. They got me an unreserved ticket and we talked to the TC who did the needful to get me what i needed. He gave me the necessary papers and also charged money for his services. Over and above that I also had to pay for the tout.
But the most interesting thing is when the guy came to collect the money from me. He actually spent about fifteen minutes with me and proclaimed that honesty is a virtue and how those touts are out there to cheat innocent travelers like myself. And then he gleefully took his commission and justified it by giving me some weird reason. It was an example of how dishonesty has been ingrained in the system wherein its no longer bad. Bribes are part of life and that's the way it is. But despite that the guy was honest in some strange ways and some of the things that he told me actually ensured that I was better equipped to handle the rail troubles that I would encounter in future :-)
Neways, I was happy that I got my ticket and I was on my way to manmad which was nother half hour away from Nasik. I reached Nasik after a journey of about 24 hours and met up with my friend Nitin. He is with Reliance infocomm and it was nice catching up with him. Later I met one of his distributors and its was great to chat up with them all. The guy is called Ravi and actually there was something really nice about him. I mean still cant quite articulate what I actually liked in him but I did and if I am to believe hunches then I guess I would love to actually work with someone like him.
Then Nitin is I guess a very special guy. He prepared for cat with me and did his MBA frm SCMHRD. The first time I met him I guess I felt tht he was a prick but from those days he is one of the few I have cared to keep in touch with. The reason I like him is perhaps because he is very dependable. He was always a fighter quite unlike me and some of the things he did during out cat preparations used to give me creeps. Since the last one year he has been managing sales in Nasik and a normal guy would have cribbed but this guy has did a decent job and his voice conveyed a certain amount of calm and confidence that perhaps reflects the satisfaction from the job :-)
We did go to a few places while in Nasik and the thing that stuck me most were the names. I mean the guys in Nasik sure have some sense of humor. I saw boards proclaiming details about taklu jewellers and kela & kela associates. But the cake was a men's apparel store that had a board which proudly proclaimed "Sorry Madam" :-)
After that it was bombay where I met Rahul the man behind the now famous machhar theory. From there we went to pune to meet a classmate from graduation days who is no longer single. The couple is quite interesting cos the guy is relatively quite and his better half ensures that silence is absent in their homes. But what was more interesting was the observation of how a successful relationship can give you a certain amount of stability and confidence.
Then it was back to bombay with Rahul where he is staying at a place called Pali Hill. The place is interesting cause if you look out of his windows you would stare directly into the residence of Maushmi Chatterjee. Not far from his place is the residence of the Kapoor family of Kareena Kapoor fame ;-) There are so many other celebreties in the vicinity but whats more interesting are the neighbours inside their apartment. The humans in the place are out of bounds in one of the rooms. The place is exclusively reserved for the wildlife in the area that includes pigeons, their shit and a lot of other things ;-)
One day before my birthday I went to a place where I had a great time last year. My summers at Patni was one hell of a great time I had and one of the reasons I went to bombay was to go back and meet them all. Some of great guys at the marketing department are no longer there. Others like Jai and Nandini are still there. Every one seemed to be busy and yet Jai actually walked out of a meeting for me. And there were others like Rochelle with their small talk touched a chord. I had an appointment with one of my seniors at JP morgan but I stayed on cause it was great getting back to these guys.
Then the thing that was really funny was my meeting with my mentor Ashutosh Apte. In one of my previous mails i had described my first meeting with him. I showed him the excerpts from those writings and he was graceful as ever and I actually started admiring him more than ever before. He had played a role in me getting the PPO from patni and had been very supportive during my stay at patni.
Later I met the big guys in the department. I was just a trainee and it was a nice feeling being able to just walk into their rooms. And the icing on the cake was when the mkting head actually offered me a job anytime I wanted it. But despite all that I left the office on a rather sad note. Jai and Nandini who were closest to me seemed rather low and I couldn't even spend proper time with them. Anyways I guess I do intend to make up with you two as soon as I get the chance :-)
Then I met up with Modi who was my senior at bangalore. We had a rather longish chat where I bugged with some details about kerala and the Mahindra talk and he told me about his girl friend and relationships. He also had some interesting thoughts on topic. He said that love marriages are based on a foundation of faith, while understanding forms the base of arranged marriages. He went on to explain, that when you marry someone you love, you expect the other person to understand you. On the other hand when you go in for an arranged setup you actually make space for the person coming into your life. Its an interesting analogy and that's the most important thing that stayed with me form the conversation that I had with him over a month ago.
After parting ways I met with Rahul and few of his batchmates from MDI. First we went go carting and from my performances I must say that I should learn driving pretty fast ;-) Then the buggers had a coke and cake surprise for me right at midnight. My favorite blue and white shirt looked brown after the molestation :-( Guess thats how they wished me Happy Birthday and Coca Cola Enjoi.
Next day after Rahul was back from office we went to one of his friends place where the bachelors from different b-schools actually prepared their own food and had it too ;-) Soon after we were back at Pali hills where I wasn't feeling one bit sleepy. So I decided to take a midnight walk and in the process experienced some of the shadier sides of the night life in bombay. Young girls hardly fifteen packed like sardines in a omni ready for sale. Then enuchs dressed in really expensive and hep cloths in autos parked in a way that aroused suspicion. Anyways the walk up Taj lands end was interesting and so was the jog back home ;-)
Then it was time to get back and I had wait list tickets for my journey back home. I had planned to reach the station a few hours in advance and get hold of the TC and get the tickets confirmed. My train was at 9:30, Rahul was to get the ticket from a travel agent who had booked it a few days back. He was to leave for Sholapur on an official tour so the plan was that he would leave office early and reach home by 6 and then we pack and leave for the station. At 8 he called me and told me that he was gonna be late and urged me to pack his bag and come to the station which was ten minutes away. I did everything in haste and I got the ticket from him and I was on my way to Mumbai central to catch my train. I reached Central with just one hour for the train to leave. I checked out with the TC for the train, but since I was already pretty late confirmation of the tickets seemed difficult.
So when I was approached by another tout I readily agreed provided he provide me with the proof of confirmation before I leave. The guy made first told me that confirmation was possible only for AC three tier and so demanded more than a thousand bucks for getting sleeper wait list confirmed for the AC coach. He asked for the money in three tranches and the way he behaved was pretty suspicious. He used to take the money and disappear with some excuse about what he had to do. He also made some excuse about why he didn't want me to accompany him.
He played so many games that I decided that if something goes wrong then I am going to royally screw him up. And that's exactly what happened. The guy came back some five minutes before the train was to leave and he gave some bull about what to do to get the tickets confirmed. I checked with the TC and he told me that the info I was given was wrong. I got out of the train he gave me some more advice about how I must have talked to the wrong guy and I should have talked to some particular guy who would help me get the tickets. So he once again got me into the running train.
But unfortunately I had got into the general compartment and there was no way I could get into the AC compartment till the train stopped. So I just waited for the next halt which was borivilli, which is actually quite a distance away. And before getting into the train I had a word with a Policeman called Mr Arya who hinted at the widespread malpractices happening inside the station. He also suggested that I should file an FIR in case something goes wrong. He also hinted at the collusion that exists between the police and the touts. And how an official FIR could do a lot good even if the guy responsible is not arrested. His behaviour was professional and was quite helpful.
So finally i reached Borivilli and got off the general compartment. I went to the TC who again told me that there wasnt anyone by the name given by the tout. I got out of the train and informed my parents and Rahul about my intentions to stay back. My father suggested that i should have continued my journey cause I had a wait list ticket and the TC couldnt have thrown me out of the train. But somehow i decided to stay back and bought the tickets to Mumbai central.
As luck would have it i took the slow train instead of the fast and on my way back i had total strangers who went out of the way to help me out. One was a Tamilian who stayed in mumbai since the last 17 years and now had earned enough to be able to move back to his home town. Even after he left he actually kept calling me just to check if i needed any help. And whats more admiring is the fact that the guy actually stays in Dharavi, a slum cluster.
The first thing i did after reaching Central was cancel my wait list ticket and get the money refund. Then i went to the police station to file a complaint. The time was 12 in the night and the intention was just to file a complaint and i least expected the guy to be caught. But the police in our country works in strange ways and even they can perform wonders.
I told them that the guy was in his early twenties and he had medium height wore a yellow shirts, light trousers and had curly hair. That's all i told the police about the guy. So after that i went back to the platform and also talked to a couple of railway officials who promised to get me a ticket to delhi for the next day. So the idea was that i join the illustrious gang of guys who had spend a night on the platform. Then get the tickets for the earliest train possible and leave off for delhi after filing the FIR.
On the platform giving me company were hundreds of others and "Angels & Demons" the book Dan Brown wrote before he became famous with "the Da Vinci Code". While I was reading the book I felt that people were looking at me. Initially I felt that it was perhaps a figment of my imagination but then soon I found some really interesting twist to the story. A really scared guy in yellow shirt came to me for confirmation that he wasn't the guy who had duped me. Sort of shocked I agreed and told the police that this wasn't the guy. The time was around ten minutes to two and the police told me that there were two other suspects. Within ten more minutes my guy was caught and he was behind bars and soon I had my money returned to me.
Within two hours with vaguest of clues the police had actually caught the guy. It was an admirable act had it not been for the things that followed. Now that the guy was arrested I suggested that an FIR should be lodged. The officer in charge evaded response and he asked for my father's name and permanent address. The mere process of writing the address on a piece of paper was intimidating. To add to that he kept on suggesting that the entire fault was mine since I should have gone to the official counter. I had the urge to tell him that had I got tickets in the normal fashion I would have never gone to the tout in the first place. But I kept quite. Guess I had chickened out.
As soon as I got out of the police station I was surrounded by the other thugs and those who had helped me arrest the guy. They urged that I should press charges against their fellow thug. It was interesting, cos all those who seemed to want to help me seem to suggest that I should go and file a complaint. And that included the thugs, policemen like Mr Arya and the railway employees.
Then I went back to my reading place and I resumed my reading and now the people who were staring at me seemed more important and occasionally they had the police with them. And at around five I got 2nd AC tickets to delhi. Even now I had to pay a small bribe but what was most interesting was that I got the tickets for the training leaving at around 7.
And now every half hour a guy used to come over ostensibly to inquire about my well being. I feel the purpose was more to ensure that I didn't file an FIR. They kept on telling me things including how inconvenient it would be to file and FIR and how I would have to come over again and again. I called up my father and told him that the guy was caught. I didn't tell the other details and he was insistent on me coming back.
I did come back. And the first feeling was that of having chickened out. Rajan the Tamilian gave another call just to chk if everything had gone well. I felt good and headed back to delhi. But I also felt bad that I didn't quite do what I had set out for. I mean I could very well have continued in the previous day's train on my waiting ticket and yet I came just to file an FIR. But that's exactly what I didn't do.
I guess a long time has passed since that night that I spend on the platforms of mumbai central. Guess the guilt about how I ran off has also come down. I take comfort from that the fact that I saw things that you normally don't. And more importantly if faced with a similar situation in future perhaps I would be more assertive and perhaps results would be much more proactive. So on that note I end this piece. In my next edition I would be writing about my trip to lahore and the twenty five odd bees that bit me ;)
Till then take care and njoi.
Shijo
May 14,
The best part of my MBA was perhaps the convocation. Compared to my previous academic engagements this was a very elaborate affair. Apart from wearing the graduation robe and getting the degrees the experience was memorable for the speech given by Anand Mahindra. But before that we actually spent the whole of the morning rehearsing for the event. And the staff members of the IIMs definitely deserve kudos for the way the entire thing was conducted.
Then to add icing to the cake was having Mr. Anand Mahindra as our chief guest. Normally when you have a good speaker you admire him and say wow. But at the end of the speech you usually wont be able to speak for more than a minute about what the person actually said. Its on this count that mahindra scored over all the others speakers I have heard in my life. His speech was rich in content his delivery was perfect. But more than it was as if he was speaking to a plan. It seemed liked a story with a start, a middle and an end. And at the end of it I actually ended up speaking for about 10-15 minutes about what he did say.
I wont bore you with the details but he had numerous anecdotes from his personal life and he articulated his vision for a future for india. The core idea was to have confidence in our abilities to create a future for the country where there would be space for the poorest of the poor. At the end of the speech I felt that it would be a great experience to actually work under someone like him. And I understood the reason for the dynamism the Mahindras have shown in recent times. Its no surprise to hear about the various Mahindra initiatives like bikes, scorpio and the bank and in future only greater things are in store for this company. And I also decided that as soon as I have some money I will start investing in this company :-)
Then my parents were in Bangalore we did some travelling and I also fulfilled my mother's childhood wish of going to the Vrindavan gardens in mysore. It was a opportunity for me to bond with my parents though I did face a few instances where I concluded that parents have an inherent ability the bug the hell out of you :-(
At the end of it all I wanted to do some travelling and catch with some old friends. I had mentioned my plans to my parents but at the very last moment my mother gave some royal sentis about how she wanted me to be with them on the journey back to delhi. I retorted with sentis of my own to wriggle out of the situation. Soon after that I packed my stuff and loaded it on to the train and so that they could chaperone it back to delhi ;-)
The experiences that followed in the next few days was insightful for many reasons. For one I think I started appreciating the differences in the way me and my parents would perform some task. I mean my first stop was Nashik and two hours before the journey I had no clue about how I am going to travel. My father would have planned the entire thing to its last detail and perhaps would have been the first person to get the tickets to that place. In hindsight he would have had a smoother ride but I guess I had much more fun than he ever would :-)
Getting a ticket on some of the trains in india is difficult. In fact some trains like Karnataka express actually have their tickets sold out at least a month in advance. And getting sleeper tickets is actually quite an adventure. But there are loopholes and there are people out there to make the best out this opportunity. Its so happens that there are cancellations at the last moment and who gets that berth is a function of who approaches the TC first. So as soon as I got to the ticket counter I encountered guys who told me that they could help me get confirmed ticket. They got me an unreserved ticket and we talked to the TC who did the needful to get me what i needed. He gave me the necessary papers and also charged money for his services. Over and above that I also had to pay for the tout.
But the most interesting thing is when the guy came to collect the money from me. He actually spent about fifteen minutes with me and proclaimed that honesty is a virtue and how those touts are out there to cheat innocent travelers like myself. And then he gleefully took his commission and justified it by giving me some weird reason. It was an example of how dishonesty has been ingrained in the system wherein its no longer bad. Bribes are part of life and that's the way it is. But despite that the guy was honest in some strange ways and some of the things that he told me actually ensured that I was better equipped to handle the rail troubles that I would encounter in future :-)
Neways, I was happy that I got my ticket and I was on my way to manmad which was nother half hour away from Nasik. I reached Nasik after a journey of about 24 hours and met up with my friend Nitin. He is with Reliance infocomm and it was nice catching up with him. Later I met one of his distributors and its was great to chat up with them all. The guy is called Ravi and actually there was something really nice about him. I mean still cant quite articulate what I actually liked in him but I did and if I am to believe hunches then I guess I would love to actually work with someone like him.
Then Nitin is I guess a very special guy. He prepared for cat with me and did his MBA frm SCMHRD. The first time I met him I guess I felt tht he was a prick but from those days he is one of the few I have cared to keep in touch with. The reason I like him is perhaps because he is very dependable. He was always a fighter quite unlike me and some of the things he did during out cat preparations used to give me creeps. Since the last one year he has been managing sales in Nasik and a normal guy would have cribbed but this guy has did a decent job and his voice conveyed a certain amount of calm and confidence that perhaps reflects the satisfaction from the job :-)
We did go to a few places while in Nasik and the thing that stuck me most were the names. I mean the guys in Nasik sure have some sense of humor. I saw boards proclaiming details about taklu jewellers and kela & kela associates. But the cake was a men's apparel store that had a board which proudly proclaimed "Sorry Madam" :-)
After that it was bombay where I met Rahul the man behind the now famous machhar theory. From there we went to pune to meet a classmate from graduation days who is no longer single. The couple is quite interesting cos the guy is relatively quite and his better half ensures that silence is absent in their homes. But what was more interesting was the observation of how a successful relationship can give you a certain amount of stability and confidence.
Then it was back to bombay with Rahul where he is staying at a place called Pali Hill. The place is interesting cause if you look out of his windows you would stare directly into the residence of Maushmi Chatterjee. Not far from his place is the residence of the Kapoor family of Kareena Kapoor fame ;-) There are so many other celebreties in the vicinity but whats more interesting are the neighbours inside their apartment. The humans in the place are out of bounds in one of the rooms. The place is exclusively reserved for the wildlife in the area that includes pigeons, their shit and a lot of other things ;-)
One day before my birthday I went to a place where I had a great time last year. My summers at Patni was one hell of a great time I had and one of the reasons I went to bombay was to go back and meet them all. Some of great guys at the marketing department are no longer there. Others like Jai and Nandini are still there. Every one seemed to be busy and yet Jai actually walked out of a meeting for me. And there were others like Rochelle with their small talk touched a chord. I had an appointment with one of my seniors at JP morgan but I stayed on cause it was great getting back to these guys.
Then the thing that was really funny was my meeting with my mentor Ashutosh Apte. In one of my previous mails i had described my first meeting with him. I showed him the excerpts from those writings and he was graceful as ever and I actually started admiring him more than ever before. He had played a role in me getting the PPO from patni and had been very supportive during my stay at patni.
Later I met the big guys in the department. I was just a trainee and it was a nice feeling being able to just walk into their rooms. And the icing on the cake was when the mkting head actually offered me a job anytime I wanted it. But despite all that I left the office on a rather sad note. Jai and Nandini who were closest to me seemed rather low and I couldn't even spend proper time with them. Anyways I guess I do intend to make up with you two as soon as I get the chance :-)
Then I met up with Modi who was my senior at bangalore. We had a rather longish chat where I bugged with some details about kerala and the Mahindra talk and he told me about his girl friend and relationships. He also had some interesting thoughts on topic. He said that love marriages are based on a foundation of faith, while understanding forms the base of arranged marriages. He went on to explain, that when you marry someone you love, you expect the other person to understand you. On the other hand when you go in for an arranged setup you actually make space for the person coming into your life. Its an interesting analogy and that's the most important thing that stayed with me form the conversation that I had with him over a month ago.
After parting ways I met with Rahul and few of his batchmates from MDI. First we went go carting and from my performances I must say that I should learn driving pretty fast ;-) Then the buggers had a coke and cake surprise for me right at midnight. My favorite blue and white shirt looked brown after the molestation :-( Guess thats how they wished me Happy Birthday and Coca Cola Enjoi.
Next day after Rahul was back from office we went to one of his friends place where the bachelors from different b-schools actually prepared their own food and had it too ;-) Soon after we were back at Pali hills where I wasn't feeling one bit sleepy. So I decided to take a midnight walk and in the process experienced some of the shadier sides of the night life in bombay. Young girls hardly fifteen packed like sardines in a omni ready for sale. Then enuchs dressed in really expensive and hep cloths in autos parked in a way that aroused suspicion. Anyways the walk up Taj lands end was interesting and so was the jog back home ;-)
Then it was time to get back and I had wait list tickets for my journey back home. I had planned to reach the station a few hours in advance and get hold of the TC and get the tickets confirmed. My train was at 9:30, Rahul was to get the ticket from a travel agent who had booked it a few days back. He was to leave for Sholapur on an official tour so the plan was that he would leave office early and reach home by 6 and then we pack and leave for the station. At 8 he called me and told me that he was gonna be late and urged me to pack his bag and come to the station which was ten minutes away. I did everything in haste and I got the ticket from him and I was on my way to Mumbai central to catch my train. I reached Central with just one hour for the train to leave. I checked out with the TC for the train, but since I was already pretty late confirmation of the tickets seemed difficult.
So when I was approached by another tout I readily agreed provided he provide me with the proof of confirmation before I leave. The guy made first told me that confirmation was possible only for AC three tier and so demanded more than a thousand bucks for getting sleeper wait list confirmed for the AC coach. He asked for the money in three tranches and the way he behaved was pretty suspicious. He used to take the money and disappear with some excuse about what he had to do. He also made some excuse about why he didn't want me to accompany him.
He played so many games that I decided that if something goes wrong then I am going to royally screw him up. And that's exactly what happened. The guy came back some five minutes before the train was to leave and he gave some bull about what to do to get the tickets confirmed. I checked with the TC and he told me that the info I was given was wrong. I got out of the train he gave me some more advice about how I must have talked to the wrong guy and I should have talked to some particular guy who would help me get the tickets. So he once again got me into the running train.
But unfortunately I had got into the general compartment and there was no way I could get into the AC compartment till the train stopped. So I just waited for the next halt which was borivilli, which is actually quite a distance away. And before getting into the train I had a word with a Policeman called Mr Arya who hinted at the widespread malpractices happening inside the station. He also suggested that I should file an FIR in case something goes wrong. He also hinted at the collusion that exists between the police and the touts. And how an official FIR could do a lot good even if the guy responsible is not arrested. His behaviour was professional and was quite helpful.
So finally i reached Borivilli and got off the general compartment. I went to the TC who again told me that there wasnt anyone by the name given by the tout. I got out of the train and informed my parents and Rahul about my intentions to stay back. My father suggested that i should have continued my journey cause I had a wait list ticket and the TC couldnt have thrown me out of the train. But somehow i decided to stay back and bought the tickets to Mumbai central.
As luck would have it i took the slow train instead of the fast and on my way back i had total strangers who went out of the way to help me out. One was a Tamilian who stayed in mumbai since the last 17 years and now had earned enough to be able to move back to his home town. Even after he left he actually kept calling me just to check if i needed any help. And whats more admiring is the fact that the guy actually stays in Dharavi, a slum cluster.
The first thing i did after reaching Central was cancel my wait list ticket and get the money refund. Then i went to the police station to file a complaint. The time was 12 in the night and the intention was just to file a complaint and i least expected the guy to be caught. But the police in our country works in strange ways and even they can perform wonders.
I told them that the guy was in his early twenties and he had medium height wore a yellow shirts, light trousers and had curly hair. That's all i told the police about the guy. So after that i went back to the platform and also talked to a couple of railway officials who promised to get me a ticket to delhi for the next day. So the idea was that i join the illustrious gang of guys who had spend a night on the platform. Then get the tickets for the earliest train possible and leave off for delhi after filing the FIR.
On the platform giving me company were hundreds of others and "Angels & Demons" the book Dan Brown wrote before he became famous with "the Da Vinci Code". While I was reading the book I felt that people were looking at me. Initially I felt that it was perhaps a figment of my imagination but then soon I found some really interesting twist to the story. A really scared guy in yellow shirt came to me for confirmation that he wasn't the guy who had duped me. Sort of shocked I agreed and told the police that this wasn't the guy. The time was around ten minutes to two and the police told me that there were two other suspects. Within ten more minutes my guy was caught and he was behind bars and soon I had my money returned to me.
Within two hours with vaguest of clues the police had actually caught the guy. It was an admirable act had it not been for the things that followed. Now that the guy was arrested I suggested that an FIR should be lodged. The officer in charge evaded response and he asked for my father's name and permanent address. The mere process of writing the address on a piece of paper was intimidating. To add to that he kept on suggesting that the entire fault was mine since I should have gone to the official counter. I had the urge to tell him that had I got tickets in the normal fashion I would have never gone to the tout in the first place. But I kept quite. Guess I had chickened out.
As soon as I got out of the police station I was surrounded by the other thugs and those who had helped me arrest the guy. They urged that I should press charges against their fellow thug. It was interesting, cos all those who seemed to want to help me seem to suggest that I should go and file a complaint. And that included the thugs, policemen like Mr Arya and the railway employees.
Then I went back to my reading place and I resumed my reading and now the people who were staring at me seemed more important and occasionally they had the police with them. And at around five I got 2nd AC tickets to delhi. Even now I had to pay a small bribe but what was most interesting was that I got the tickets for the training leaving at around 7.
And now every half hour a guy used to come over ostensibly to inquire about my well being. I feel the purpose was more to ensure that I didn't file an FIR. They kept on telling me things including how inconvenient it would be to file and FIR and how I would have to come over again and again. I called up my father and told him that the guy was caught. I didn't tell the other details and he was insistent on me coming back.
I did come back. And the first feeling was that of having chickened out. Rajan the Tamilian gave another call just to chk if everything had gone well. I felt good and headed back to delhi. But I also felt bad that I didn't quite do what I had set out for. I mean I could very well have continued in the previous day's train on my waiting ticket and yet I came just to file an FIR. But that's exactly what I didn't do.
I guess a long time has passed since that night that I spend on the platforms of mumbai central. Guess the guilt about how I ran off has also come down. I take comfort from that the fact that I saw things that you normally don't. And more importantly if faced with a similar situation in future perhaps I would be more assertive and perhaps results would be much more proactive. So on that note I end this piece. In my next edition I would be writing about my trip to lahore and the twenty five odd bees that bit me ;)
Till then take care and njoi.
Shijo
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