138

I was travelling from Bhiwani to Jatusana for an audit tour. Train was almost empty and I was alone in my berth. I was looking outside the window, and as I turned my neck back, I found a drunken man sitting on seat in front of me. He had some potato-mesh curry and some 'poori' in a use-and-throw pans. He had spilled most of it it on the seat which left the seat unusable. Not eating more than a single morsel, he threw the rest of it through open door, with his shaky legs and came back sitting on a clean seat. I asked him to clean that seat he ruined. He didn't reply in words. Instead he started making strange gestures. I believe that neither he was with ticket, nor he bought that food with his own money. It must have been given to him by some vendor in sympathy. I again asked him to clean it and again received the same reaction of weird gestures.

Could I clean it for him? Yes.

Should I clean for him? May be! After all it is railway property, which eventually belongs to us. And there seems no shame.

Did I? No. Because I was all dressed up for my duty with washed clothes, and I had no such cloth or newspaper which could be used to clean. So, I was incapable to do the task owing to lack of resources, even if I wished to. "I can't clean it with my shirt" I said to myself.

Then I thought of calling railway helpline. Are they of any use? Well it is time to see. I took out the ticket. It says "Passenger helpline no. 138".  I called 138, and IVR said " This number can not be reached right now. Please call again later". I tried 3-4 times but all in vain.

Some time later, that man was gone. Later Ticket Checker came and asked for my ticket. After taking my ticket back, I said "Sir, call to 138 doesn't go through".

TC: Why do you need to call 138, sir?
Me: A drunk man made this mess (pointing to the curry-spilled seat).

Meanwhile another TC came in. They both sat on clean seats.

TC 2: It's not 138. It is 139.
Me: But the ticket says 138 (Handing over the ticket back to him)

He looked at it and returned.
TC 2: Oh yes! 139 is for enquiry.
TC 1: Ignore it sir, what could we do to a drunkard? You are an educated man. Even if Police were to come, they would just drag him out of the coach. Nothing much could be done.

Then they left.

After that, at every station, people kept entering the train, looking at that seat, starting to blame and guessing, and moving to next seats. " Koye besahoori khinda gi" (some ill-mannered woman spilled it)

And only I know the whole story in the entire coach.