Learnings at the Railway Ticket Booking Counter

Dur­ing the fes­tive times, get­ting train / bus tick­ets is get­ting very difficult.People are book­ing well in advance as soon as the book­ings begin. For Indi­an Rail­ways, it is 90 days before the date of journey.Everybody wants to go Home dur­ing the hol­i­days and if the hol­i­day comes with adjoin­ing week­end, then the rush cant be imagined.And for poor plan­ners and peo­ple who decide to trav­el in the eleventh hour, like me,will have to lose mon­ey and time as well.

I had to wake up at 4AM to be at the book­ing counter at 5:30 AM which opens at 8AM only to find that there are already peo­ple who came even early.Everyday, for the past 4 days, I was at the counter by 5:30AM. But I was hum­bled every time and I was nev­er the first one in the queue.But I some­how man­aged to get all the tick­ets I wanted.Thanks to my social skills. They came very handy when I was posi­tion 3 in the queue on one day.If not for them, I wouldn’t have got my tick­et.

I lost lot of time and mon­ey but there is no oth­er go. This is the next best option available.I cant trav­el in Gen­er­al bogie con­tin­u­ous­ly for two days and also I cant afford Vol­vo whose price will only sky­rock­et on the day before the jour­ney date.

These are the learn­ings:

[1] If you bad­ly want some­thing, you will some­how get it. (I woke up at 4 AM every­day for 4 days, even after los­ing touch with the habit of get­ting up ear­ly)

[2] How much ever smart you think you are, there will always be some­one some­where, who will out­smart you.So be hum­ble. ( I went every­day at 5:30 AM think­ing that I will be the first one to be in the queue. But only to find that there were already peo­ple wait­ing from 4 AM or even 3AM. I was nev­er first one in the queue.) 

[3] Social and net­work­ing skills are a must for any­one. ( My abil­i­ty to con­nect and min­gle with peo­ple helped me one day to get my tick­et despite of arriv­ing at posi­tion 3. Remem­ber that Tatkal tick­ets will be exhaust­ed in no time (max 5 min­utes from the start time), espe­cial­ly in a fes­tive sea­son like this.So even if you are in posi­tion 3, you will NOT get a tick­et.)

[4] Think beyond your­self and help oth­ers in your lit­tle way.There is a lot of sat­is­fac­tion in that.( I helped two of my friends and one more per­son who was behind me in the queue in get­ting tick­ets.)