- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 2249 views
Without Ticket
I always compete with time (in seconds-its fun) and so I reached the station to find the train standing on the platform, announcements being made about its departure.There was an unusually big queue in the ticket counter. When you have to travel short distance and without any plans, you donot book tickets in advance. So I rush-run to the platform. I find two TC on the platform and go straight up to them and announce that I have no ticket and I want to take this train only. "No ticket!", they blur out in disbelief. And the train starts moving, so I panick and so they suggest to ask the TC visible through the 3 Tier AC bogie door. I repeat. The TC on the train assesses and tells me to jump in. I request him for a regular AC ticket but he tells me, I need to have some kind of ticket to even board the train, what of desiring a ticket. He can issue a ticket only with a fine which will be double or more the cost, and he made it amply clear that he had no intensions to charge me the fine. So he asks for Rs 200/- which is the actual ticket amount anyways, tells another young TC going on a holiday to see me through the gates at my, and also his, destination. Looks so planned. I pay thinking that my children bought my company by gifting Rs 200/- to his children. The two hours I had to spent to know this guy well, so as to decide whether to take the risk of following him and get caught as someone else or not following him and get caught for "No Ticket". I find there still are good people around. But why can't a TC issue a ticket to a 'without ticket' person, whom he has permitted to board? It was part of my adventures of getting trained to the train-ways and add another two question to my brain-box. The second- Is the TC in a life situation when he can think the same way as me, while having to pay a bribe. Congrats on this initiative. It is fun to reminiscence such incidents, but not the one when you had to pay a donation of Rs 90,000/- for school admissions.