I,being the
first-time voter, was damn excited to vote. As soon as the dates of
16th LokSabha election were announced, I booked my railway
ticket to hometown without any delay from my side,though you know
the irctc website forces you to delay unnecessarily. In my parliamentary
area voting was on 24th of April,2014. My journey was
scheduled on 20th of April,2014, 23:45 PM ,almost 21st
of April. I left my house at 10 o'clock in the night to catch the
train. And, from here the journey to cast my vote started.
The nearest
metro station was located at the walking distance of 15 minutes. I
had ample time,so I decided to walk on foot to reach the metro
station. After 15 minutes I checked-in and went to the platform. The
metro train didn't take so much of time to come. Whenever I travel,I travel
with a very few bags. I don't like to travel with so much of luggages, because I think “Less luggage,Happy journey”. Metro train was not
so crowded, Some seats were vacant. I rushed to the seat and sat down
after making sure that seat was not reserved for ladies,old-age
person or for specially-able person.
From the
station I boarded, New Delhi railway station was situated at the
distance of half an hour. After crossing 2 stations, commuters
started coming in a large number. I saw two ladies were standing,
I,being responsible and law-abiding citizen,immediately vacated seat for them. Though
only one lady could accommodate it, whoever seats I don't care, I
fulfilled my duty. Now I had to stand nearby the gate,I leaned by the virtue of glass near gate. I could comfortably stand as I had not
that much of luggage.
Some
commuters were not obeying the rules of metro like keeping the bags
at your back while great rush is there in the train, not eating
anything inside metro, not taking any photographs, listening to the musics
and offering seats to the needy people. All were tending to defy the
rules. But anyways, at the next station, Rajiv Chowk, which is usually
known for great gatherings of commuters as from this station people
can change their metro to reach the respective destinations.
I too had
to change the metro to reach New Delhi. I stretched myself to get
some space and deboard the train. But people standing outside to
board the train were standing just in front of the gate and they were
making difficulties for deboarding commuters. After so much pushes
and pulls, I managed to deboard the metro train. I took the
backpacks back on my back and checked out of the station.
I
reached to New Delhi railway within 2 minutes after walking. So many
people were standing,sitting,lying on the ground with lots of
baggage. Some migrant laborers were with bori, dibba, bartan,
potli etc.
The razzmatazz kind display board was displaying the information of
scheduled trains. I saw the Purvottar Sampark-Kranti(PSK) super fast
express was illuminating and right time, platform number 13 were
written with the bright orange color.
Walls
of the station were looking very dirty because of pan-masala
and
gutkha spits,
floor was full with used polythene, biscuit and chocolate wrappers.
I stood in the queue to cross the x-ray machine check-points, I was
having doubts if that was working. There was only one policeman was
seating near x-ray machine,literally there were no intensive checks
at such important station of capital of India.
To reach the platform,I had to go up ,walk
through the foot-over bridge and then get down to the platform number-13.
Escalator was out of order. Some thought it was working and went then
saw it was not working, some walked on escalator, some get back to stairs. I
went up with the help of stairs of around 50 steps. After seeing the
signboard of Platform-13, I got down. There was a huge gathering of travelers. It was obvious that the crowd was for PSK only.
It was 22:50 PM and the train was at 23:45. You
will close your nose when you will see the state of sanitation around
railway tracks and platforms. This is the capital's main railway station.
It is true that Delhi Metro stations are so neat and clean, it is
because of collective responsibility of people and management
authority. In Indian Railway(IR), neither people care nor management
care, it lacks the collective responsibility. All I can say is IR is
in a sorry state whether it comes to providing time-bound service,
sanitation, catering or infrastructure.
I kept on roaming, though there was not enough
space to roam, and observing about people and management there. I
repeat the train was scheduled to depart at 23:45 and it was 23:35,
but there was not even a single announcement nor people were able to see
the train looking far away. Finally train came at 23:40, train was
looking very filthy, composed of old fashioned boggies, some were washed and new.
There were signboards displaying boggy number attached to the platform-roof but was not working at
all, which was working ,was displaying wrong number. Nothing about boggy number was written down on the boggy.
This mismanagement created a huge chaos at the platform
number-13. All were abusing IR for not displaying the boggy number.
People with lots of heavy luggages were running to grab the seat back
and forth as the time was 23:45. I guess, there were many people with
waiting tickets, may be because of this it was creating a great chaos. Had there been
display board of boggy number, there would have not been created such
kind of fuss. I thought, train had just come from yard to platform,
it would not depart on time for sure. So I took my step back and stood
where there was no rush. I kept on watching people, in how much hurry
they were in. It's all because of mismanaging the system by railway
authority.
After everyone got settled down, I slowly slowly walked
and reached to boggy no. S7 after asking the people inside, “is it
boggy no.-S7?”. I saw TTE was coming from the back-end of the train
and he was sticking those charts simultaneously. I tried hard to enter
the boggy, there were so many people at the gate, those people were
with waiting tickets,but could not. Meanwhile, train slided a little bit in the forward
direction. There were many people standing outside, struggling to
enter the boggy.
However, I entered the boggy by playing jumping-japang-jumpak. My seat number was 71, it was just near the dirty,stinky washrooms
and wash-basins with leakages. Water from the bashin was entering where people were about to seat including me. I saw some people were seating on my
seat, they were with the waiting tickets. I inquired about them by not
telling them to vacate immediately. They told me they are from Assam
and they are going to vote. And, in that boggy, there was not the
space even for keeping the steps on the floor. It was because many people
had entered the wrong boggy and they were trying hard to reach the
respective seats.
I asked some people(mainly Assamese) if there is any
festival in Assam as it is a huge rush.One guy answered they all are
Bangladeshi infiltrators . But, mostly told me they are going to
cast their votes. Many village people were going home, probably they
were migrating from Delhi with bag and baggages as they had
like a big 100 kg rice-bag filled with some old clothes, some
traditional snakes , 1-2 kg capacity empty curd plastic jars,canisters, that
rice filtering instrument made with bamboo ,ohh lot of bizarre things
were there. Slowly slowly, people started settling down like some
chemical precipitate and space for breath was created automatically.
People who were seating on my seat, I asked whom they
will vote for, they replied AGP(Assam Gantantra parishad),the key
ally of BJP in Assam. They said, Modi is the need of the hour, it's
an election to choose Prime Minister, so we want a strong leader like
Modi. I was happy to see their awareness, so I offered my seat to the
leg side,at least one people could sit down while I could sleep. The
train departed from the New Delhi station at 12:20 AM. People were
bit relaxed, but due to smells of washroom, I was not comfortable.
However, someone switched off the light and I put my bag below my
head and fallen asleep.
It was 8 AM and Kanpur. I checked ,till now train is
approximately 2 hours late. I went to freshen up myself. Toilets were
so dirty that I could not sum up all the courage to go inside and
pee. But, I had to get freshen. I went to some other boggy and found
one usable washroom and felt comfortable. I came back to my seat, ate
some bikaneri bhujia. Whenever I travel in train, I usually don't eat
the canteen food of IR,it is disgusting food.
Reached to Allahabad and ate some guava, it is very
famous here. I was feeling hungry, I ordered veg food. After 2 hours
around 12 PM, pantry car staff came with the food. When I opened the
packet, it was like local yellow,fat swollen rice, liquid pickle quite bitter in
taste, old pumpkin veg, watery pulses . However I ate half of the food and paid Rs.
90/- Food was of Rs 20/- max though.
Two people were with digi-cam, they,after seeing the
plightful condition of railway, started interviewing people and making
video about sanitation,food etc. In one boggy, usually there are 9
compartments with 8 seats each making 72 seats per boggy. 4 charging
points were available but none of them working. Fans were throwing
hot air. People, after paying above Rs. 500/- as fare, were feeling deceived to get the facilities while traveling.
The train had entered Bihar, chain-pulling is a big
problem in Bihar. Local people and hawkers board the train, when they
reach their own destination, they pull the chain and deboard. No one
cares. I did not see even a single Railway Protection Force
(RPF) man inside the train. From New Delhi to my destination(1200 km), there are
only 2 stoppages, third is my hometown station. But, the train was
like passenger train, stopping at every small,big stations, sometimes
even at the halts.
Somehow I reached my hometown station at 12:05 AM
in the midnight, the train was scheduled to reach at 8:20 PM, it was
late by almost 4 hours. My elder brother had come to receive me. I
came to brother's temporary house with my brother and next day went
to visit my elder sister and her two sons. Same day Mom said "I have
come to nearby your sister's house, so be ready I will be coming and receiving you". Mom came with her BJP election vehicle with a flower bouquet to receive me. That was nice, felt good. She let me meet
Sushil Modi and other BJP leaders present at the BJP office . In the
evening reached home. Mom, sister-in-law and other family members
were happy to see that I have come just for voting. Especially my
mom, who is also BJP Mahila Morcha block president.
Next to next day, there was polling scheduled in my
constituency. Election campaign had ended on that very day. In the
night, we all family members including sister, she had come later as
her name had come in the electoral roll, were seating together near
the dining table and discussing about who will be the next PM. I was
feeling so good that after so many years ,I was seeing everyone
together, thanks to election and thanks to Modi. Because of his
candidacy I was excited to vote.
I told my mom to wake me up at 6 AM in the
morning as I had to go to cast my vote. I wanted to become the first
voter at my booth. I took a bath, got ready,took my electoral cheat,
id-cards and left home. When I reached to the polling booth. I saw
around 60-70 young voters like me were already standing in the queue despite sun and
waiting for their number to come. I was like what, is this the Modi
wave? I'm sure they all were the first-time voters like me. After
standing for 2 hours in the queue, I got my number. I got my number
so late because many ladies and old-age people were coming , so
security personnels were taking them to the front. Electoral staff
checked my name, inked my finger and told me to go inside and cast my
vote. As I wanted to vote for Modi and mind has made up for this, so
only lotus mark was appearing in the machine. I casted my vote, I
heard a deep long beep sound and saw the red light illuminated in front of lotus symbol. I got
assured and left the polling booth.
I asked the youths and some older people about whom they have voted for, all
were saying lotus and Modi. I being curious asked if they know the
name of candidate whom they are voting for? They answered me, They are voting for Modi, they don't care that much about the name of candidate
at least for this time.Yes, It is the Modi wave. I came back to Delhi
with the train 9 hours late. My voting journey ends here. Indian
Railway is in a sorry state. Ministers and bureaucrats are sleeping
with pouring the oils in their ears. They are not caring about the
problems being faced by the commuters. I hope, the new Modi
government, if it comes to power, hopefully it will be, will address
the railway issue making it to the top of the list.
