The
news that a 44-year-old woman, caught for travelling ticket-less, chose to go to jail for seven days instead of
paying a fine of Rs.260, saying the authorities should first arrest and recover
the loan dues from liquor baron Vijay Mallya
opened up the Pandora's box of stored events in my memory.
Ticket
evading is an innate Indian mindset. It
satisfies the psyche of a person with a
win win situation when he has to endure a lot of hardship travelling in
cattle class in Indian trains.
It
happened in the eighties when my husband
was staying in Paris with his friends for a few days. On the first
day as they travelled in the metro my husband bought a single ticket to
‘Gare du Nord’, While a friend travelling with him did not buy a ticket.
"Can
you buy a season ticket in Paris Metro?"
"
Yes..... yes.... very much." he giggled.
As
they alighted from the train his friend
asked him to go ahead and put the ticket in the turnstile gate. The machine
right earnestly swallowed it letting the gate open for him. But his friend’s
ticket was different. A thread was tied to the ticket and a slight insertion to
the turnstile opened letting him out and as he came out he pulled out the
ticket using the thread. Coming out he giggled again and explained to him his
smart method of travelling free with just one ticket bought long ...long ago!!
"How
much of wealth the French had swindled from our mother India? This little
effort from our side is just a measly
compensation!!
But
in this digital age the systems have become smarter making no allowance for
this hanky-panky business!
The
next one is even more hilarious!
When
Lalu Prasad Yadav was the railway minister a whole gang of people from Bihar
travelled ticketless to Kanyakumari, the Southernmost tip of India informing the
ticket checking officials that why they should buy tickets when their 'saheb'
is the lord and master of the Indian Railway?!!
The
audacity and the justification....!!
My
mother used to tell this funny (not so funny then) incident in her life. It
should have happened in the early 1920s when she was five or six years old and
when travelling by train was new and paying for travelling was alien to the
bullock cart travelling mind. The bullock cart from the village dropped my
mother and a few of her sibling along with their uncle and aunt at the railway station at Kumbakonam. Her uncle was taking his sister's children to his place and it was their first travel
by train. At the station my uncle asked
my mother to remove her skirt and blouse......! My mother looked at him in
amazement asking for an explanation....... "You need not buy a ticket if
you are not wearing anything my dear girl." he said matter of fact.
"In
that case" my mother said "buy me a ticket."
Her
uncle couldn't comprehend this answer. He thought that this little girl should
be joking. If removing the dress implied a free travel you can as well do it in
this hot climate. However much her uncle and aunt tried to convince her with a
good example from their own child of the same age, this adamant little one
would not budge.
Why waste money on a ticket? If only this little girl could cooperate the savings could be put to better use.
His
persuasion and enticement with matinee
show at Prabath theatre at Trichy couldn't help out the situation. As a last
resort her uncle aunt planned a ruse through their eye contact. All of a sudden
the girl felt sudden grip of her body by her uncle while her aunt was trying to
undo the knots of her skirt This unexpected double assault was too much on the puny girl and holding her
skirt tight she took off like 100 meter
runner all the while yelling at
the top of her voice. The inquisitive
crowd at the station had gathered to find out what was happening......!
This
unwanted attention was too much on the uncle and at the end he had no other way
but to buy a half ticket for her!!
In the
Mumbai where Ms. Premlatha Bansali raised her protest against a high
flying(hiding!) entrepreneur in the most novel way, thousands of passengers
were patronising a newly started of
venture by tiny entrepreneurs with their tiny contribution!! The story goes
like this:
It
was indeed a far more popular insurance scheme of the early 1980s.Launched by a
small band of entrepreneurs from Borivali. The scheme was specifically targeted
at the Western Railway commuters . A model of simplicity, it owed its success
to a rather unique interpretation of the principles of checks and balances,
where checks meant the rare ticket checking operation conducted by harried and
over worked TTEs and balances referred to the growing sums in the
entrepreneurs' bank balances.
The
scheme worked like this: you went to one of the company’s numerous agents
(helpfully located near every suburban station) and registered yourself as a
bona fide policy holder by filling in a
form and forking out 10 rupees towards annual premium. No proof of
residence, age certificates or medical examination- all they wanted was a
simple declaration of name and address and Rs.10 towards annual premium. You
were immediately issued a small card with your name and policy number on it
duly authenticated by the company agent. And with this all your commuting
expenses are over.
Because
thereafter you can travel for a year in second class without having to purchase
a ticket. In the unlikely and unfortunate event of your falling prey to a TTE
during this period all you had to do was to pay the fine (which was if memory
serves right double the maximum fare)
for the ticket. Now all you have to do is to take the receipt issued by the TTE
along with your little insurance policy card to the agent and lo and behold the
entire fine amount was reimbursed to you on the spot, usually with a lecture on
how to avoid TTEs in future. The agent also noted the event on your card before
returning it to you, for the policy allowed a maximum of three such claims
during the year. This was a perfectly reasonable caveat considering the chronic
paucity of TTE staff and the above average artfulness of the average
Mumbai commuter in dodging the TTEs.
To
say that the scheme was widely popular would be an understatement. Within few
months of its launching several lakhs of hardened commuters had purchased
policies.
I
recall the remarks of a colleague who had thoughtfully taken out policies to
cover his entire extended family from grand uncle to numerous toddlers against TTE risk.
“Travelling has never been so pleasant” he said cheerfully “People are more
relaxed; they smile more and quarrel less. All thanks to the insurance scheme-
indeed today there must be more policy owners than season ticket holders in the
trains.”
Alas
like all devious projects devised for happiness and benefit the common
citizenry, this wonderful enterprise was cut short in it’s prime by a callous
government official. There were conflicting reports as to how the end came.
According to my colleague the fault lay with an Anderi bound commuter.
Challenged by a TTE, this worthy declared in ringing tones that he possessed
neither ticket nor cash with which to pay the fine; whereupon the TTE
threatened him with brief sojourn in the railway police lock up Instead of
quietly acquiescing in the interest of common good (a nap in the lock up would
have done him some good), my colleague said bitterly, the infuriated gentleman
produced his insurance card and taunted the TTE with it.
Confessions
led to the operating agents and the police
eventually moved on to the headquarters (a small rented room). They found
records indicating that over Rs.50 lakhs had been invested with the company by
it’s happy clientele. A pall of gloom descended upon the great city with the
company’s dissolution ; for it marked the end of a true fine insurance scheme,
in every sense of the word!!
