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With a ticket in hand, knowing who to speak to in an Indian train station with the right amount of begging and scraping and a suitably pathetic look, and a westerner can get away with murder on the Indian Railways. We had a ticket from Moradadawful to Gorakhpur, but had come further down the line to Lucknow to get on this train here instead.
We chatted to the ticket counter who pointed us to the Enquiries counter who had a heated discussion amongst themselves and eventually called us in. The gabbled something at us and gathered that we should see the station master. He phoned a variety of people to get there opinion, it seemed, and told us to just get on the train.
"You cannot really do this, but because you are westerners, you just get on the train and tell the Ticket Examiner(TE) that I said it was OK."
"Bless you, uncle-ji. Bless you. Happy Diwali!" we said bowing and scraping as we departed.
Hang on a sec. If you have that written down and it looks officially, then that paper is like a gift from the gods! We didn't get on, so off back to the station master we went. b******s, he is not there. Plenty more explaining was done to the bloke that was there and he made plenty of phone calls and he eventually directed us to the D.S.S.
The Deputy Station Superintendent is almost a deity himself here, and his word goes. After much more phoning and explaining and phoning and explaining (I was sure that these guys had called most of the Indian Railway employees and that come the time we boarded, we would be celebrities!), he said the same the station master, but he was writing nothing down! But at least we had the assurance of two senior Indian Railway officials with fancy titles like DSS and station master to impress a mere TE. We were on that train tonight! Luck now indeed!
Come 0200 we were up and ready, only to make our way out onto the station platform and through the other refugees to find out that it was only due in at 0400. Ok, back to the dorm and a few hours sleep and the alarm clocks set and ready!
0400 come and our trains comes in and the refugees swarm! Well, we counted ourselves amongst them, but with hefty backpacks and with their spineless backbones, they were no match in the battle for space! It turned out that the carriage that we were trying to get on was filled to the hilt, but the space between the compartments and the toilets looked like it had our name all over it! Yes, please and praise all that is holy when the train slowly pulled out into the pre-dawn light. Tonight we will be in Nepal and India but a distant memory!
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