How else can I plan?

3:15AM	I got a new BMW after taking down G - Mac and his gang. Still no signs of getting tired or plans to sleep after driving for many hours. I look at wonder why my nails have started to grow in different directions. Also did a quality check on my wrist and keyboard to see if everything was intact.
3:20AM	Even in that darkness, a 200 watt bulb suddenly glows up my head. OMG, I got to book thatkal ticket that Morning at 8 AM. Literally 5 more hours. Since its a long weekend, it would be a huge task to get one thatkal ticket.
	[It will be an impossible task to sleep now and get up with all sense up and running at 8 AM. (S/w Engg slang)]
3:33AM	Text message to Friend 1 and Friend 2. Please please wake me up by 7:45, if you see this msg before that. I got to book tickets.
	[Main plan: Alarm at 7:45 AM]
	[Backup plan 1: Reminder at 7:50 AM, since alarm will snooze again at 7:55]
	[Backup plan 2: Reminder at 7:59 AM, with note "Idiot get up at least now!!"
7:51AM	My mobile blares and I feel like yelling #WTH. I attend and find Friend 2 on the line, waking me up. Thanks a ton, Friend 2.
	[PS, I was thinking I should file a complain to Nokia, that the alarms and reminders are not ringing. My roomie later confirmed that it was I was sleeping like corpse not noticing it. :) I spare Nokia]
7:55AM	IE, FF and Chrome is open and irctc.com is loaded. Even filled the quick book form with name, age, sex etc etc and even took care of timing flaw.
7:59:45	Finally even counted seconds for the irctc server to tick 0800.
8:00:12	Refresh the page to submit my booking.
	[The site is unavailable]
8:00:40	Frantically check the other browsers and to see if any one of them to connect to server. But all reply the same.
	[Suddenly I feel there is an unusual silence around me. Almost ignored in the panic of retrying.]
	[Noticed that it was the power cut (sharp like a samurai sword) at 8:00. Ah! Even BESCOM is synced with railway timings. :-(. The modem / router is switched off. Sigh]

How else can I plan?

Google SMS

Looking for live IPL scores, current time in New York, today’s gold price, availability of seats or fares for trains from Bangalore to Mumbai ?

We have recently enhanced our SMS Search offering to bring you all that and more. A simple SMS to 9-77-33-00000 gives you instant access to Google SMS Search and that too at the cost of a normal SMS.

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Apart from stock prices, we now provides commodity prices as well. Just SMS 'price gold', 'price oil', or 'price cotton' to know the MCX spot prices for these commodities. To learn more, sms 'help commodity' to 9-77-33-00000.

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Didn't you wish you could do more than just getting your PNR status and train schedule on SMS ? We now provide seat availability and fare information as well. For ex. to check seat availability for 24th April on train #1018, going from Bangalore to Mumbai, simply sms 'train avail 1018 Bangalore to Mumbai on 24-04' or if you want to know the fare for sleeper class, sms 'train fare 1018 Bangalore to Mumbai for SL'. To learn more, sms 'help train' to 9-77-33-00000.

To learn more about various interesting features, please visit http://www.google.co.in/sms or SMS 'help' to 9-77-33-00000.

Cross Posted from Google India Blog

Best of all, you don't pay a premium charge for any of this, just the price of a standard SMS.

Kids

It is hard to recollect something and write it later. But you can't help it too, pulling a laptop in a moving train and making a post is unlikely unless you are traveling in a sadapti. Sigh in this train even a short message was F hard.

I was envy, jealous and etc etc on the kid who was on the next berth who came along her grandpa. Why? I boarded the train and lied down like a old fellow with my ear plug on. The 541 megabytes of music was my *only* lonely company. She was playing around climbing berth after berth and finally getting help of her grandpa and getting down. So much energy for the physical activities. Soon after the ticket checking is done. They decided to sleep. (She has to share the berth with her grandpa.) She decided to take the cushion seat by climbing completely over him and gave a full hug of his belly and rested that smiley face. I was happily watching them. It should have been less than a full Tamil song. She slept! My god when was the last time I slept like that.

Today I had been to a saloon and was there for almost two hours. A kid was there! He was one of the relatives kid who came here for the annual holidays. (I verified, It was not child labor.) He was inquisitive. Asking, "maama yethvathu velai kudunga maama!" (uncle, give me some work uncle) Soon he asked him to clean the shelf. I was watching him and he did not even get a second distracted from him work. He got down things, cleaning them arranging them in height order for the entire 90 minutes. I think its a meditative state of the child. When was the last time I had done something so meticulously for a continuous 90 minutes.

Dear Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav

March24, 2009

Bangalore.

Sir as I'm suffering from fever, I would like to... No its not my leave letter, Hello Lalu ji.. How are you doing? hope things are good out there. Well, have you got a chance to visit this place called Coimbatore, down south in Tamilnadu. You know its a beautiful place and you should pay a visit sooner or later. It has one the best climates I have ever absorbed through out the year. Make sure you drop by to taste my mom's pulli kolambu. :-)

I love Indian Railways. Well, right now I live in Bangalore I have a concern. Something that is under your administration. You know there is very good amount of people commuting from Bangalore to Coimbatore. So many Software Engineers, business men, families in bunch commute between Bangalore and Coimbatore. But the trains between Bangalore and Coimbatore is very less.


When I said less this is why..
1) Coimbatore Express: This train commutes from Mumbai to Coimbatore. So the train is almost full when it reaches Bangalore. Also the number of seats that we get through Bangalore station quota is less.
2) Kanyakumari Express: This train commutes from Bangalore to Kanyakumari via Trivandrum. Yes all the way through Kerala. This train now is loaded with all sorts of people other than who want to go to Coimbatore. Esp when the train goes thro three states, just think of the rush it would have.
3) Eranakulam and Trivandram express: Completely ruled out because of the not so ideal time they leave Bangalore. My boss will not be happy if I start at 4 from office every friday, to catch the train.
4) Only two train at ideal timings.

Ok, some how I booked the tickets from Bangalore to Coimbatore. Now I need to plan my return journey. This is what I have to plan my return journey. Half the apple for everyone.

1) Only one ideal train from Coimbatore to Bangalore that starts at night. So the people who travelled in two trains now have to squeeze them in one train.
2) Bangalore Express (6265) starts from Kanyakumari. So it will be loaded with people during holiday season. I have seen the TTR getting fed up with the crowd and not checking the tickets even.

Just look at Chennai. They have 3 trains starting at night. In that 2 dedicated trains that run all day! I find my Chennai friends get a ticket any time they would need. Here is the availability status to Coimbatore of some coming weekends. (You got available status on May 1st because its a long weekend and Friday is a holiday)

1 27-Mar-2009, Friday WL 102/WL 51 WL 15/WL 15
2 03-Apr-2009, Friday WL 22/WL 16 WL 135/WL 116
3 10-Apr-2009, Friday WL 77/WL 67 WL 19/WL 19
4 17-Apr-2009, Friday WL 57/WL 41 WL 12/WL 12
5 24-Apr-2009, Friday WL 31/WL 22 WL 5/WL 5
6 01-May-2009, Friday AVAILABLE- 0093 WL 9/WL 9

If you can do something useful after this general election would be to have one (just one, Lalu) dedicated train from Bangalore to Coimbatore. It would be great!

Thank You.

Yours sincerely,

Thanks to Indian Railways

Today Morning I was booking a train ticket read something that got me into big simle. Thanks to Indian Railways for being intelligent and considering this.

One of the passenger booked on an E-ticket is required to present any of the five identity cards noted below in original during the train journey and same will be accepted as a proof of identity failing which all the passengers will be treated as travelling without ticket and shall be dealt as per extant Railway Rules. Valid Ids:- Voter Identity Card / Passport / PAN Card / Driving License / Photo ID card issued by Central / State Govt. for their employees.

This is awesome. At least that we would not have paid all those fines. :) But still I envy those Chennai guys that they have soo so many trains from Bangalore. Just that they get tickets for any weekend at ease.

Easter Egg - 90 days advance booking IRCTC

Today (July 24th) I was deep asleep after watching few episodes of prison break and around 9am (apparently close to midnight) I got a call from my friend.

Friend: Vijesh, Did you book the tickets?
Me: What.... What ticket?
Friend: Ticket for Diwali (in train) opened today.
(...gives me a mild shock and sit up)
Me: No, I guess its not today. I'm keeping track, few more days to go.
Friend: No, it opened today and sleeper is already in waiting list (WL) so we booked in AC. Hope its fine with you.
Me: Yeah ok.

Dragging myself to a system near by to check my Google calender reminder and IRCTC online reservation for Oct 24th. Well something was wrong. It was not really 90 days for tickets to open for booking. Since I lost my love towards Coimbatore Express after the night stay at the train station. I always ignored that train and tried with Kanyakumari express (6526). Still it says given date is out of range for booking. Then gave it a try in Coimbatore Express(1013). This query seems to work fine and says tickets are in WL, Ah! that's strange. With some trails I inferred that Coimbatore Express starts 2 days earlier from Lokmanya Thilak. So apparently the booking software allowed to book for all stations that the train traveled on that date itself. So Bangalore that comes on the third day opens two days before they actually do.

How many would know this? Still, have mailed Customer Care! Let me see how they respond. Ideally only those stations that are exactly 90 days before the train reaches should show up for booking. Guess the engineer was lazy to have this boundary condition in place. I would call it an pseudo Easter Egg.

A Night at the Train Station

Damm! Fixing bugs until 7:30 is pain when you want to catch your train at 10:00. Finally got a lift from Santy to reach home on time and sent the last mail for the day. I had only minutes to start of for the travel. So I just threw all the things that are to be packed that I *remembered* and stuffed them into a bag. (Now, I realize that I had drew a blank more than what I remembered. :)). Then the phone rings and my friend at the other end saying he was not able to make it to the travel due to his work (everybody seems to take the same road when it comes to work...). So I need to travel alone then :(. Ah I still haven't got back my MP3 player from my friend which I though I can use to fill my loneliness in travel. Or a book!? But then fore casted that it would be less time to read a few pages in my speed before I go to sleep.

I don want to talk about those unmerciful autowala who take every opportunity to make a hole in your wallet. By the time I reached station, I was happy to see the Global warming getting some attention. There was a live CO2 and N2O reading meter at the entrance. I even tripped on a lady's suitcase on watching it. Directly went to the large screen to scan for the train number 1013. Finally there it was Kurla express at 22:05 in Pt #3. Had a little snack and took my seat in a passengers waiting bench. Kanyakumari express set out on time. After a brief dinner was waiting for my train and there came "Chennai mail" on the platform. Err! that was a surprise.

Then came a voice in the announcement speaker "Passengers, your kind attention please! Train Number 1013, Kurla Express, From Kurla, via Bangalore to Coimbatore is expected to arrive at 23 hours 55 minutes". Yes my heart skipped a beat and I concentrated to listen in other languages too, they all meant the same. The train was two hours late. What can I do until then? With the last bit of battery that remained in my mobile I call my home and friends to say that I will be late. Well I decided to take a walk in the station until then. The walk was beguiling.

I saw a diversified on the station. The first group I saw was a gang of three who were sitting inside a immobile train talking about their old days. On hearing the news they started thinking of how to spend the time until then. Finally they decided to go to the nearest bar :). A maintenance worker of the station came and started to switch off the lights in that train and started to close the doors. I needed to get down and start walking again. Few of them were on the phone making their own chit-chat. Some were having their earphone plugged and some even put the music on the loud speaker. Many decided to catch some Z's until the train comes, they caught hold of news papers, carton boxes and bedspread, put them on the floor. A girl with tear filled eyes talking to a nun. Two full walks over across the entire stretch of the platform.

When my bottom of my foot started to ache. I decided to take some rest right below the steel staircase where some workers lockers are kept. As my clock clicked two drunkard came to that place, I sat ignoring them. One was not able to stand soon lied down on one of the metal case to opposite to me. Then other decided to smoke by moving away from light to hide himself. Few minutes passed and both the men took off since some policemen was passing that place. Then again I saw alone with some company in the ground. Rats! :) Yes they were of all sizes and running all over in search of food. In my observation they use both their sight and smell to live those conditions. Now and then they come out and sniff the air for any food and their eyes in constant watch out of any danger. With the slightest movement they sped into the dark.

Then came a old women who with a stick who was unable to walk. I noticed her some time back in the walk who was asking for some penny to people. She was very weak and her look mean so lost. Soon she started the conversation with me asking is the train late? (in kannada) I nodded my head in positive sense. Then she asked when is it coming? I never knew the translation of 12. But managed to tell the same in Tamil and she interpreted that it was 00:00 and responded back the same in kannada. She then asked did you have you dinner(utta)? I said yes. She took out a half pack of Goodday biscuit that someone donated and asked me to have one. I was full with my cup noodles and politely denied it. With the sound/smell of the biscuit packet in her hand the rats below got excited and started to run across more frequently. Taking all the risk to come as much near her feet to sniff for some food. Then one of drunken men returned to the place, the old women asked him too if he had taken his dinner. The guy replied negative. Then she took out a small bag that had some food and gave it to him. Since he was using his seventh sense din know what to do with that pack and let there and went. Out of that half pack she donated a half piece to the rats and a full piece of biscuit to the dog that came across. I realised that not every one who demand money are bad. She was one kind good women. Then she said bye telling that she cannot sleep here since those drunkards would come back.

Finally time was fast approaching Midnight. Again the same voice that came out, "Passengers, your kind attention please! Train Number 1013, Kurla Express, From Kurla, via Bangalore to Coimbatore is expected to arrive at 01 hours 30 minutes". Ahh, its frustrating than ever. Finally when the train arrived at 01:30 I din find my coach S10. So I walked till one end of the train until unreserved and returned back to the other end to find "10" written in 3:1 ratio giving a look of S1. Finally boarded the coach and slept. No TTR came to disturb my sleep, after all they are also humans.

Reached Erode at around 8 in the morning. Went to the lodge to refresh myself before going to the wedding hall. Frustration again to find no water :/ Then finally reached the wedding hall to find everyone taking rest after a nice breakfast. Meet the wedding couple, wished them and clicked few. It was like "In pursuit of Happiness..." that small moment to see - I call it Happiness. Took rest for few minutes, started towards home and reached home at 4pm.

If you have reached this point reading all the above, by now you could have realised that it was as painful as like reading this post. Also if you were on the station on that night reading this post, revert back I will buy you a coffee ;)

Update: When I saw the second image, I only remembered my tester bugzilla attachments who uses rounded red rectangles to point out that the data in the report is wrong. :)