I face the screen by sitting up a bit straighter, assailed by a fluttery sense of unease, controlling the strong itch to do something. Test fever? You could say.
It’s usually like this when I am watching a page load on IRCTC’s website, surely loved and reviled in equal measure by gadzillions of users like me, who probably blame themselves for overloading the reluctant beast. I’m sure you have done it, too — waited 4m 37s to reach the list of trains available, wishing for a glass of water you are afraid to fetch in case something actually happens on the screen? I work the system at least a dozen times every month but I remain intensely superstitious about getting a booking of choice. Probably because I almost never do (cancellations, now, they are a breeze!). But grumpy doesn’t begin to describe the way I get when, two months and three-and-a-half weeks in advance, having decided to keep-a-ticket-handy-anyway, I end up with a side berth after paying full fare for a confirmed AC II Tier ticket.
Of course this happens to everybody — the system allocates numbers in mysterious ways — but I want to know why. Why can’t we pre-select seats when we book ahead, like we do in an aircraft? Why should the passenger on a side berth pay the same ticket price as the chap spread out on a smooth, wide bed in the main bay, his legs luxuriously stretched, his body spared the contortion of a claustrophobic side-upper (the dreaded ‘SU’ on my printout), his spine safe from the pokey joint that attaches the flattened backrests of the Machiavellian ‘SL’? Why not be charged less when you get so much less? Is that so difficult to conceive? Are you listening, Hon’ble Minister of Railways? Sir… ?