PART-3
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Pleasant weather welcomed us as the train blasted past Bharatpur, well into Rajasthan. The sun which shone to its might in the Capital was forced to retreat behind the rain clouds in the Land of Desert. The sand flowing with the wind was an indicator of the latter’s velocity which could not be otherwise felt inside. Mild showers which followed would have surely quenched the thirst of the Mother Earth. Sightseeing proved a futile exercise after darkness set in and perfect sceneries turned into blurred shadows of one’s own.
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I had been waiting for the catering staff since Mathura to buy some snacks but there was no sign of them. Catering by Meals on Wheels has always been top notch in this train and its sibling (BDTS-NZM Garib Rath), so I had no doubt on the quality of food they served. I quickly logged into IRI to check if something was wrong. The catering option was written in green which only meant that either the information available here was old, or we were trolled by the onboard catering staff. Whatever it was, the hungry stomachs were anyways forced to wait till KOTA where the vendors of platform 2 struck gold in 10 mins and would have been left to fill up the empty shelves and refrigerators.
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One thing that I decided to take up with the PG portal was the absence of TTEs till KOTA. This was one of the fundamental reasons the problem of waitlisted travellers had assumed gigantic proportions. A middle aged man finally entered into the coach 15 minutes after the train left KOTA and went away after checking the tickets hurriedly, without an interest. There was no staff change at RTM I observed, which surely meant that the one who checked our tickets had taken charge from KOTA. This left me with only two possible reasons for the above. One, there were no TTE in the train till KOTA. Two, if they were, then they surely didn’t discharge their duties well. In any case, it was a shortcoming on the part of the authorities for which I would soon seek an explanation.
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The journey thereafter was an uneventful affair as I tried to explain the loopholes we encountered in the train to my brother. He was least bit interested in it but the calmness that had spread over his mind after his last entrance examination made him peaceful enough to listen to me. I am not sure how much of it he remembers now.
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The train covered up 30 minutes which were lost before KOTA and arrived 5 minutes before time at RTM. Could have been earlier had there been no unscheduled halt of 15 minutes at Nagda. An interesting journey hence conluded. Now all that remains of it are memories and a train board picture which I captured at RTM to act as the wrapping of this finished product.
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THE END