One for RESERVATION.

It was early in the morning as I crossed my area park where fat uncles and even fatter aunties of my locality were trying to do yogasanas with an instructor who had given up hope trying to make them slim. I remembered asking one of my friend’s mom about her daily yoga practise at the park.

“Auntie. Why do you do yoga at the park every day? You aren’t fat.”

“Well. Yoga helps me reduce tension and improve patience.”

“So, have you improved your patience then?”

“Yeah I think so.”

“That being the case, you are now fully eligible to see your son’s report card.”

Watching her was like watching a volcano erupt in slow motion. ‘So much for the 500 bucks every month spent on yoga.’ I thought as I moved past the park and onto the main road. There are a lot of simpler ways which can teach patience and tolerance. Example: Booking a train ticket.

They call me 'train' for a reason. I train your patience.

To explain concepts better, the following will be in Q and A format.

Q: How many types of train ticket reservations are there?

A: Broadly classified into two. Offline and Online.

Q: How do I reserve a train ticket offline?

A: ‘Offline’ reservation, as ironic as it sounds, is the art of standing in a line in front of the reservation office. If you are trying to book a ticket offline during festival seasons, either you must have all the time in the world or you must be retarded. That is because we follow a simple rule: The length of the queue >= the length of the journey. i.e. You might end up covering the distance of your journey in the queue itself. This is the new ‘Pay for 1, get 2 journey’ scheme.

Q: Oh, they seem to be giving a lot of importance for queue system. Is there anything I have to do before I stand in the queue?

A: A very good question, yes. You will have to fill up a reservation form giving the details of your journey and keep your fare for the trip ready. You are requested to have a proof of identification about which will be discussed shortly.  Also you are requested to attend a one-day seminar at Tirumala Thirupathi Devasthanam to improve your behaviour in the queue. If the queue is really long, special queue concessions will be given to those who have completed the TQC (Thirupathi Queue Certification) course. This includes snacks from time to time (2 laddus) and free lunch coupons at the Kalyana Katta.

Q: What were proofs you mentioned that we will have to carry while booking the tickets?

A: The website requests you to carry your Driving license (or) PAN card (or)Ration card(or) Voter ID. This is one of the major errors on the website. Apparently, the people who developed the website misplaced the conjunction ‘and’ with ‘or’. That is, you are required to carry ALL the proof of evidence that you are from planet earth.If you have a child below the age of 6, you are heavily advised to bring the L.K.G. or U.K.G. ID card and a letter from his/her ‘class miss’. Also we request you to have with you while booking the ticket, the original of the aforementioned proofs so that you might lose it in our premises, forcing you to procure new ones.

Q: What is online ticket reservation?

A: It is for those people who think standing in a queue is too mainstream and using your high speed internet for booking tickets is cool. But the real reason of giving an online service is that you aren’t embarrassed in public. If you try to book a ticket online and fail miserably (which usually happens), you could just lock yourself in a room and cry and nobody will know it, unlike in a queue where your disappointment will noted in public.

For the travel, you are required to bring the original of all proofs mentioned sometime back. There will be an additional handwriting check by the T.T.E.(Train Ticket Examiner). We would like to make sure that the handwriting on your Driving license, Voter I.D., PAN card is your own. Hence, you are requested to bring the ‘rough note’ you used in third standard (or higher classes) attested by your then school principal. Our site is specially designed to make even your 4Mbps connection look like 512Kbps. The rest of your bandwidth is secretly being used by our authorities to spy on neighbouring countries. This way we help you, the common man, serve the country.

Q: What is Tatkal seva?

A: The question I have been waiting for. ‘Tatkal’ in Sanskrit means ‘instant’. There is some misinterpretation of the meaning of ‘Tatkal Seva’. It does not mean 24*7 any time instant ticket reservation. It simply means that the seats under this Seva is filled the ‘instant’ the bookings are opened. That is, it means you lose your chance to book a ticket if you are not at the right place at the right ‘instant’.

Tatkal seva, right from its introduction, has been a hit. Those husbands who would refuse to wake up early in the morning to buy milk from the booth are now waking up as early as 5 o clock to stand in the queue to book Tatkal tickets. Those parents who refused to get even a 256Kbpsinternet connection are now moving on to much higher bandwidth (4Mbps and more) since they feel this would give them a much better speed to book Tatkal tickets.

Q: Tell us more about the website.

A: The IRCTC website for booking online tickets is a secure system with SSL encryption which is made to run on a single server located far in Antarctica and supposedly serviced by Bear Grylls. Trying to book a ticket on this website is a test of patience and requires a lot of mind games with the server. The server logs anyone out if the time between two successive mouse clicks on the page is more than 10 seconds. If you have chosen the train, the next page is the filling of personal details. The text captcha which you are required to type on this page is generated from the server currently present in the ‘Mars Rover’. The next stage is where you ‘pay’ for your sins committed on the website so far. 3-D secure transaction with your bank or the payment gateway helps drain thrice the amount of ticket fare from your bank account. After all, 3-D means ‘Drain, Drain and Drain’.