A trip report from me after ages. Relates to my journey by the Anga Express from YPR( or KJM to be precise) to HWH commencing on 3rd January. Bid goodbye with a heavy heart to my son-in-law Sanjeev and IRI member Pramodh Kommattil both of whom had come to see my wife and me off at KJM. Quite natural for we were returning to the drab monotony of routine life at Kolkata after a wonderful holiday lasting all of 10 days at Bengaluru. Incidentally Pramodh had also received us at Banaswadi station when we arrived by 12245 HWH-YPR Duronto on Xmas Day.
As I was waving goodbye to Sanjeev and Pramodh, our first impressions, as the train departed from KJM at 2.30...
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pm, were not encouraging, to say the least. I had booked my tickets rather late, say about 15 days before the journey date and perforce had to resort to the LB quota. As no tickets were available in AC class, I had no option but to rest content with sleeper class, knowing fully well that travel in this train by sleeper class would make a nightmare resemble a sweet dream. Luckily 2 LB quota berths were vacant in sleeper class at the time of booking. As we occupied our berths 9 & 12 in coach S8, we barely managed to park ourselves on the side seats and place our luggage securely.
S8 coach with an official capacity of 72 was home to at least 100 passengers. In our own bay of 6 seats (excluding the SLB/SUB) there were 8 of us. Apart from the 2 of us, there were 6 young boys aged between 20 and 25. While 4 of them had confirmed tatkal reservations, 2 of them were wait listed passengers. All of them belonged to a minority community and were returning to their home at Jasidih in Bihar. They were labourers engaged in painting a new hotel under construction in Coorg. Despite the winter season, it was quite warm at that time of the day and much to our discomfort the fans were not working in the entire compartment. My wife wanted to have her mandatory afternoon nap and our co-passengers obliged her by vacating the LB even if the railway rules stipulate that berths are meant for sleeping only between 9 pm and 6 am. I was impressed by their accommodative nature and thanked them for their co-operation. Thus 1 LB and 2 UBs got occupied while the remaining 5 including myself were perched on the other LB. After an hour or so, I had fallen asleep in a sitting position with my head resting on the window panes. One of the boys asked me if I could manage to get up to the upper berth and sleep there. I readily agreed and he immediately vacated the berth for me. But 10 mns later I was back to my old corner as it was impossible to occupy the berth with the fans not working. I texted Pramodh and he sent me 2 complaint numbers publicised by IR. I sent an sms to these numbers about the non-working fans but there was no response whatsoever, So much for IR’s much vaunted grievance redressal mechanism, which to be fair, has worked admirably well in the past for me.
(To be contd.......)