IRCTC: Agonizing task of Tatkal booking

It is a beautiful & lazy Sunday morning for most. But for me, the mood has already been ruined. All thanks to IRCTC. The mental misery inflicted by IRCTC Tatkal booking is sometimes too macabre to be penned.

Tatkal booking entails a predefined routine for most. Wake up early, boot PC/laptop, open multiple tabs with IRCTC website, pray to gods you believe/don’t believe in, enter User name/password and then the dreaded wait. Only an extremely lucky chap can book tatkal tickets online in peak season else as in most cases it’s a battle in a lost cause. But is Railway bothered? Don’t know, may be they are, but what are they doing for it? I have been using IRCTC website for a long time but have hardly seen any worthwhile improvements targeted to reduce the clogging which happens especially for Tatkal booking.

Does the below suggestions make any sense?

• Lesser amount of Flash apps on the landing/welcome page would make the page much lighter & thus easier to load

• A Tatkal/General selection drop-down should be made available on the login page along with Username/password. If User selects Tatkal, display a non-flash/simple HTML page for User to enter the details & proceed.

• Captcha (tool which displays the random digits as an image) is the single-most annoying factor as in 95% case that stupid thing does not load. Why can’t Railways just do away with it & try something like an OTP or explore other alternatives?

• Virtual wallet can be explored wherein User blocks a fixed amount online on their cards gets a authentication code from their Bankers & during booking with IRCTC, User enters only that code on the portal which will reduce the time required for the complete card authentication process

• Alternately improve the window booking by separating the Agent & Public booking OR allow tatkal ticket booking some other websites (like Makemytrip) too

Note: The rules introduced by Railways to disrupt the strong hold of agents seem to be troubling only the general public. Agents still continue to flourish unabashedly all thanks to the Railway & Agent nexus.

Till such time, that IRCTC shuns the devil may care attitude & dwells in to find a solution, booking would continue to be herculean & painful task.

10 things I like in a Mumbai local

1. One lady with three bags shouting at another one with five bags for carrying too much luggage during peak hours
2. How much ever be the rush, a vendor will always find place for his sale in the compartment
3. Someone will always be reading paper/book/ over another unknown person's shoulder
4. Person without pass will most probably end up with a seat earlier than a genuine traveller
5. There will always be someone who wants to go in the opposite side station thereby ruining your ironed shirt
6. If you reach early, trains will be late & vice-a-versa
7. More often than not you will get a seat only when you have reached the second last station of your destination
8. Atleast once in summer you would end up travelling in compartment where Fans wont be working
9. Just to add... Railway fans can still be easily be operated by combs
10.  All said and done...I think this is one of the few places where all caste & creed get the same unfair treatment & no one can complain!

Now that you are enlightened...go enjoy your journey ....

Shrug or Stare - Time to change

What did you do when you heard the prices shot up, potholes on the way to your home have multiplied overnight, power-cuts have increased...just think back and you would realise that all you did was first CRIB, utter some swear words & finally “SHRUG” your shoulders blaming the politicians, government (sometimes even the entire Universe) to have conspired and turned a blind eye towards the apathy of you or what you love to call yourself – Common Man!

The social conditioning received from childhood stating you alone cannot change anything has instilled this behavior in our DNA. Is there a fear of acceptance of our ideas, social stigma or crushing of the ideas because of which we just hold ourselves back?

Many of us join online groups for venting our frustrations...but physically what we do to improve these conditions … is zilch!

A very recent experience which I have had is narrated below..

Near the station where I live, I saw a bunch of elderly gentlemen staring intently at some road construction work that was in progress… there was a small crowd that was already gathered there. Out of curiosity, I too glanced & on not seeing something euphoric happening there, nudged an elderly gent & asked the typical – Kya hua yaha, uncle? The response (mentioned below) that I got was classic and something which made me think -

'We have retired and have lot of free time on our hands....so when we see some activity, which concerns a citizens benefit, we all just go and look at the work. The contractor/person-in-charge at the site cannot shoo us away as neither we are disturbing him nor stopping his work! However with us staring intently, slowly a crowd is formed who all come, stare, say something & leave. This inturn puts slight pressure on the contractor as he gets insecure thinking that may be these people know something about this line of work & are hence staring. Cause of this instead of doing a 100% shoddy job, we might be able to bring down the shoddiness by 10-15%....the road that was going to go kaput in 10 days will now atleast be firm for 12 days...

I would not for sure know to what level this small initiative (if it can be called so) by this elderly group would work, but atleast they are making an effort!

If such a basic human behavior of someone staring at something can benefit us, then I am sure there might be loads of such small ideas which can be leveraged upon!

So may be even we can come out of our facebook n orkut accounts and see what changes can we do in the real life. Unless we want to crib and shrug for eternity....its time we got our act together and made a small difference in one way or the other. With time, who knows, it might snowball into something constructive that will benefit atleast some of us.

Spider-Man: A tale of an unsuccessful visit!

Long before the top brass of US and India started their ‘visits’ to meet and praise each other, our very own loving superhero Spider-Man a.k.a spidey had been to the city of dreams (ya from Newyork to Mumbai!!!) as he sensed a great opportunity and knew that India was the next-big-thing! Well, nobody knew his tale of woes as it was neither officially published nor was this debacle ever spoken in any of the so-called-socio-political circles…

However while cleaning the attic of the Whitehouse before the Indian PM’s visit, this snippet documenting the reasons of his return was found, which I present for you…

• First and foremost, it is way too hot in India and the spidey ‘non-ventilated’ rubber suit really sucked in such climates (sic!)

• The cameras that he mounted on the building to document his ‘saving’ acts were never ‘found’ again! Duh!

• Lack of those tall multi-storey buildings meant that he always was bracing himself from crashing against the electric poles, telephone wires, hoardings, overhead cables rather than saving people.

• Understanding the distress signals sent in the local Mumbaiiya language had its own complexity!

• People in Mumbai had inbuilt immaculate skills to sway away or zig-zag from an on-coming vehicles at the last possible moment so he never really got to show-off his life-saving ability!

• Saving sari-clad-women-carrying-accessories (purse, handbags, plastic bags, groceries, etc etc…) was something spidey could never master! Poor soul…

• His collection of spidey suits were all stained from the paan jet emanating from bus, cab, building, pedestrians which always caught him unawares! No suits, No dare devilry and No spidey!!

• All poltical parties warned him to change his suit colours, hold their party flag and promote their party while flying! Whether he 'saves' anyone was not their bother!

• The BMC, in a bid to avoid cleaning the webs spun by spidey, had sprayed all sort of insecticides across the city causing him all possible allergies!

The tale of two hospitals- Part I

As luck would have it, I had to visit a couple of Hospitals in the last 2 weeks. First visit was to what we term as “municipality” hospital to meet a person working in my neighbor’s office. It served as students’ study expeditions too.

The first thing that you see is the paan stains visible everywhere right from the hospital name-board, corridors, windows, to the smiling “kaka” manning the floor. With neither a reception nor any person to guide task of finding the patient was easy as finding a needle in hay stack!

The fruits, that I had carried, were immediately discarded by the nurse as the diet out there included vadapavs & not fruits! Last seen, the food was deliciously devoured by a guy couple of beds aside.

Patient whom I met was explaining his daily routine. His day started with a few students from nearby medical colleges coming with sticks and poking him to death. Next would be stretching his mouth, pulling out his tongue & then stuffing his mouth with a thermometer. These antics would guarantee that his BP did shoot up when they checked it next! If not, then the next trick of knocking out his kneecap with their ‘hammers’ definitely guaranteed it!

Last act was to check the X-rays and scanning reports. They same reports, I am sure, must have served as reference to many students as all that was left of that report was a gaping hole!

A passing look at the ICU confirmed that it was nothing less than shopping market with doctors, nurses, relatives, patients and some old discarded equipments jostling for space!

After this saintly experience, I was sure that patients getting their treatments in the luxury hospitals would have been blessed…But unfortunately that is not the case….

(...To be continued)

A Nightmare...

Darkness enveloped the entire scenario visible from the bedroom. It was more than 3 hours but there were no signs of electricity being restored. Rain was still pouring hard. Water level, already above three feet, was rising with each passing moment.

I & Uncle were stuck in the deserted building, plainly unaware of what to do next.

Phones were incessantly ringing with brothers telling me to evacuate the house as quickly as possible. I could not leave the place without my Uncle, who just did not agree to join me. I picked some cash and emergency items from the Hall and started packing them, hoping that some sense would prevail & he would agree.

My uncle suddenly rushed in from the bedroom and started urging me to move out. Before his mind changed, I quickly collected the packed items and moved out of the house. I was about to lock the door, when uncle remembered that he had left something back in the bedroom.

I went rushing in to retrieve it but was stopped by a small black object on the bed, on which I usually sleep.

I went near the object and turned it around. To my utter horror, what lay in front of me was badly mutilated dead body of my uncle. Screaming with fear, I looked above to see the time in over-head clock..… it was 3:30AM.

Perspiring, I got up from my sleep & got hold of my cell phone...Time in it was exactly 3:30AM!

Giving it up...

Most of my past posts have been attempts at humour. However the events in my life over the past few months have turned my attention towards the idea of "giving it up".

Giving it up & Giving up is as different as chalk and cheese. The latter is somewhere similar to accepting your defeat whereas former would indicate a form of sacrifice.

Life many a times makes us stand at crossroads and offers choices which can either hurt us by providing happiness to others or vice-a-versa. Most of the times in such situations we tend to take the first option when our loved ones are in consideration. Relationships which are very close to our heart have to be just given up and there is nothing that can be done except finding solace in the reasoning that we offer ourselves that its for the greater good.

Sometimes looking back at those decisions do we realise that there were alternatives. Alas! which we did not visualize then, which if taken, could have led to an entire different course of things. How often is that we repent on our decisions, our lack of foresight, our sacrifices but still just bear it and move on.

Time is said to be great healer which coupled with the human ability of moving on just eases the pain of the love, the care, the promise, the dreams, the future which we gave up.

Love is the most demanding relationships in any living world. It often presents such crossroads and whatever decision one takes, it just ends up in hurting oneself however vital the greater good is.

Most of us have undergone such experiences. You could just put some of those experiences in the comments. Lets understand how vivid the circumstances, how painful the experiences and how the sense of hope for something better prevails in our hearts...