Feb 19, 2002, morning 0345hrs. Our Auto is about to come to pick me and my family to drop at the Kanpur Central Railway station. Facebook page is already updated ``Moving for Vizag to celebrate my marriage anniversary on 23 Feb.``@deepak27 was first to like that status on FB. Thank you Deepak.
We made haste and reached the station and the Train Purushottam Express was in time at 0445 hrs.
Ours had two lower Berths. We found our seats were occupied!!. They were all sleeping. I requested politely to vacate our seats, but no one listened. Then my wife started taunting with little louder volume saying ``Sleeper me toh berth occupy kar he letein hain, ab AC berth bhee log occupy karke kitni beshrami se so rahen hain`` Now an upper berth gentleman tried to diffuse the situation by requesting my journey ticket. I oblised him.
He said, ``Sir today is 19th, but your ticket print shows the journey date to be 20th``
Oh God, what a disgrace to me!!!!!
Now, it was urgentto take the corrective action as the train was about to leave the station. I apologized to the passengers for our mistake and told Rashmi, ``Move out of the train, immediately``. It was done just in time.
The train moved.
At the Platform No 5, we were looking at the outgoing train helplessly. My wife was almost shocked at the initial experience of our marriage anniversary trip to Vizag. Soon my five year old daughter Punya started crying. it took next ten minutes of convincing to make her stop crying.
Now, we were going back home.
Enroute in the Auto, I was not able to make eye contact with my family. We all were shocked at sheer wastage of Time, Energy and Money.
The next worry was to hide this incidentwith our neighbors. As we had started in dark hours and even reached back in early morning hours only, hoped that we will be able to hide this incident. I told to my family to not to call anyone on mobile and not to go outside today!!.
We slept, as it was still around 0530 morning. But by 8 AM, there was a knock at the main door and a voice came, ``Rashmi, kya aap ghar ke ander ho?`` We told, ``Yes``. The neighbor said,``Bahar tala nahin laga tha toh socha pooch lein`` Now the `secret` was no more a secret!!
I decided now totackle the situation head on with few long laugh at myself.
They also joined and it was some half an hour talk and laugh. Now, the male member of my neighbor brought his journey ticket and started rechecking it after our incident and even requested other members too to recheck it.
We are already ready for the next day 24 hours ahead. Going to call the same Autowalah!!
Life is beautiful and I am loving it.
I love my family for the cooperation they extend everytime.
