“Lets head to Bangalore this weekend. It will be great to hangout with the guys and relive some of the old memories”. I make a few calls, set it up with the guys. Plans are in place. Its already Tuesday, so the chances of getting my hands on a confirmed ticket on any of the trains is as good as that of Gordon Brown becoming the PM again. So I think, “Lets get up in the morning and book a Tatkal ticket. I will be online by 8, it should be a breeze”. tch tch…so naive.
So I go to bed in the night thinking, I have to get up early tomorrow, atleast by 7:45 am. Alarm is set, but am yet to get hang of my new cell phone, and thus creeps in the discomfort…what if I dont get up on time? These Bangalore tickets get sold out faster than hot cakes, even 10 minutes delay can mean travelling in one of those god-forbidden Volvos…shudder! My all-forms-of-road-transport-phobia leads to a sleepless night, and over countless open-eyed moments through the night, I look at the glowing wall clock. 06:30 am…enough, going back to sleep again can be catastrophic. So i get up, do my morning chores, warm up my laptop and check my internet connection. www.google.com - fast and easy, the net connection seems to be in order.
0800 hrs…there goes the clock. I open the irctc website, the home page comes up in a jiffy. I-am-in-luck! Remember the golden rule - minimum transaction on irctc website, so open cleartrip website in another tab (god bless tabbed browsing) to track availability. Meanwhile enter the login credentials on irctc, hit enter…the page goes blank, its loading. See availability on the cleartrip site…08:05, already 30 tickets gone in each of the 3 trains…damn! 08:06 - irctc still loading, not even the navigation appears. 08:08 - still nothing…hit escape. Lets try re-entering. This time, even home page doesnt appear! Damn these sarkari sites…lets try IE, am sure they didnt optimise it for Firefox. 08:10…IE appears with the message “connecting…” (what does it have to connect to when the home page is about:blank???) 08:12 - IE stabilises, enter irctc website - 2 minutes, still no luck. 08:15 - they must be fast running out of tickets now!!! back to firefox - still no sign of the irctc home page. ohk…forget irctc, lets book in cleartrip itself…saving the extra 20 bucks is not worth this much trouble.
click on “book”…smooth transition to next page. Aha…finally something going my way. Enter passenger details - check. Time - 08:22. This 1 Mbps connection has to come good some day. Click on “pay”…waiting. 08:24. another minute of page loading…”There seems to be some problem. Like people, our servers also has some cranky days. Please try later” Whaat! 08:28…dont think there would any tickets left. Any point in buying W/L tickets in Tatkal? Dont think so…lets try again.
Restart Firefox. irctc? naah…cleartrip. search - 12 available. There is still hope. “Book”…enter passenger details…click “pay”. Loading for another frustrating 100 seconds “Just a moment” the page reads…whatever! And then I see it….appearing in parts. Oh yeah…the payment page is here. Green coloured label reading 7 tickets available. quick - enter credit card details. What was the expiry date again??? Oops..now where did I leave my wallet last night? Look under the bed…not there. On table…you must be kidding. Under the humoungous pile of clothes….BINGO! Found it. Enter the details, click next….”You are being redirected to Verified by Visa“. Keep going…asks for my password. Enter. Page loading….surely it must be done now. 08:37.
“Page cannot be displayed…” what??? what happened there. Murphy at work! What a time for the server to crash…why does this happen to me??? Try F5…still the same. Did I do something wrong? Open another tab…try google.com, the surefire test for the internet connection. “Page cannot be displayed…” ab kya hua? A drop of sweat forms on my forehead, and drips on to the keyboard. Oh chennai heat…
Wait a second…wasn’t I sitting under a fan? Where did the sweat come from? I look up…and the fan is not moving. THE FAN IS NOT MOVING! Power cut….OMG they cut the power in the house. Yes I have a laptop with a working battery, but the modem still needs power. I am doomed. 08:55…there is no way I can make it to Bangalore now. I give up…might as well get ready for office. Will call the guys from office and let them know I wont make it.
What a disappointing start to the day. So I wake up, have my bath, eat my breakfast and start for office. 09:30 - Where’s that mobile of mine…ah here it is, under the pillow. “You have 1 unread message”…must be one of those Docomo ads, asking me to pay 10 bucks a week to listen some mumbo-jumbo about astrology and my future. Who cares…I can see my future. I am not going to bangalore this weekend. Sigh. Let me atleast delete this message…unread message leave an ugly icon on my dashboard. “Read Message” - “YOUR TKT BOOKED. PNRNO ^^%$%$ from MAS to SBC“….IT ACTUALLY WORKED!
whooo...I got my ticket. That final transaction did go through! close to 90 minutes of hardwork and frustration…finally paid off :). Felt like the world was good to me all over again. Look out Bangalore, here I come. And Tatkal booking…never again. LESSON LEARNED. PERIOD.
So I go to bed in the night thinking, I have to get up early tomorrow, atleast by 7:45 am. Alarm is set, but am yet to get hang of my new cell phone, and thus creeps in the discomfort…what if I dont get up on time? These Bangalore tickets get sold out faster than hot cakes, even 10 minutes delay can mean travelling in one of those god-forbidden Volvos…shudder! My all-forms-of-road-transport-phobia leads to a sleepless night, and over countless open-eyed moments through the night, I look at the glowing wall clock. 06:30 am…enough, going back to sleep again can be catastrophic. So i get up, do my morning chores, warm up my laptop and check my internet connection. www.google.com - fast and easy, the net connection seems to be in order.
0800 hrs…there goes the clock. I open the irctc website, the home page comes up in a jiffy. I-am-in-luck! Remember the golden rule - minimum transaction on irctc website, so open cleartrip website in another tab (god bless tabbed browsing) to track availability. Meanwhile enter the login credentials on irctc, hit enter…the page goes blank, its loading. See availability on the cleartrip site…08:05, already 30 tickets gone in each of the 3 trains…damn! 08:06 - irctc still loading, not even the navigation appears. 08:08 - still nothing…hit escape. Lets try re-entering. This time, even home page doesnt appear! Damn these sarkari sites…lets try IE, am sure they didnt optimise it for Firefox. 08:10…IE appears with the message “connecting…” (what does it have to connect to when the home page is about:blank???) 08:12 - IE stabilises, enter irctc website - 2 minutes, still no luck. 08:15 - they must be fast running out of tickets now!!! back to firefox - still no sign of the irctc home page. ohk…forget irctc, lets book in cleartrip itself…saving the extra 20 bucks is not worth this much trouble.
click on “book”…smooth transition to next page. Aha…finally something going my way. Enter passenger details - check. Time - 08:22. This 1 Mbps connection has to come good some day. Click on “pay”…waiting. 08:24. another minute of page loading…”There seems to be some problem. Like people, our servers also has some cranky days. Please try later” Whaat! 08:28…dont think there would any tickets left. Any point in buying W/L tickets in Tatkal? Dont think so…lets try again.
Restart Firefox. irctc? naah…cleartrip. search - 12 available. There is still hope. “Book”…enter passenger details…click “pay”. Loading for another frustrating 100 seconds “Just a moment” the page reads…whatever! And then I see it….appearing in parts. Oh yeah…the payment page is here. Green coloured label reading 7 tickets available. quick - enter credit card details. What was the expiry date again??? Oops..now where did I leave my wallet last night? Look under the bed…not there. On table…you must be kidding. Under the humoungous pile of clothes….BINGO! Found it. Enter the details, click next….”You are being redirected to Verified by Visa“. Keep going…asks for my password. Enter. Page loading….surely it must be done now. 08:37.
“Page cannot be displayed…” what??? what happened there. Murphy at work! What a time for the server to crash…why does this happen to me??? Try F5…still the same. Did I do something wrong? Open another tab…try google.com, the surefire test for the internet connection. “Page cannot be displayed…” ab kya hua? A drop of sweat forms on my forehead, and drips on to the keyboard. Oh chennai heat…
Wait a second…wasn’t I sitting under a fan? Where did the sweat come from? I look up…and the fan is not moving. THE FAN IS NOT MOVING! Power cut….OMG they cut the power in the house. Yes I have a laptop with a working battery, but the modem still needs power. I am doomed. 08:55…there is no way I can make it to Bangalore now. I give up…might as well get ready for office. Will call the guys from office and let them know I wont make it.
What a disappointing start to the day. So I wake up, have my bath, eat my breakfast and start for office. 09:30 - Where’s that mobile of mine…ah here it is, under the pillow. “You have 1 unread message”…must be one of those Docomo ads, asking me to pay 10 bucks a week to listen some mumbo-jumbo about astrology and my future. Who cares…I can see my future. I am not going to bangalore this weekend. Sigh. Let me atleast delete this message…unread message leave an ugly icon on my dashboard. “Read Message” - “YOUR TKT BOOKED. PNRNO ^^%$%$ from MAS to SBC“….IT ACTUALLY WORKED!
whooo...I got my ticket. That final transaction did go through! close to 90 minutes of hardwork and frustration…finally paid off :). Felt like the world was good to me all over again. Look out Bangalore, here I come. And Tatkal booking…never again. LESSON LEARNED. PERIOD.
