Tatkal Reservation

                                                      

There is an analogy between Trains and Life- Life like a Train goes on and on! Well, they say it is the British people that introduced the concept of Railways in India. Since then, Indian Railways has never looked back.

The prestigious Railway Department in India is the only department that has a separate/independent budget for itself. Thus, apart from the fiscal budget we have a Railway budget as well. The Indian public heavily hinges upon trains, may it be local journeys or the distant ones. Trains are a part and parcel of daily lives of Indian public and comparatively a more convenient mode of transportation as well!

The introduction of the concept of Tatkal Reservation was the need of the hour. The exponential increase in population is perhaps the cardinal reason for the introduction of the Tatkal Model of Reservation. The Tatkal model is also a great plan for passengers who plan their journey at short notice. Almost all trains in India have a few seats reserved under the Tatkal quota.

Tell you what; it is a herculean task to book a Tatkal ticket. If you think you can book it easily from your place while sitting on your comfy sofa just because you got an internet connection at your place, man you may be wrong then! It is a risky venture, what if you fail even to login during the hours of Tatkal Booking! The website makes you experience a time delay; you feel all the frictional forces of the world summed up! Sometimes I feel the person who manages to book a Tatkal ticket successfully must be awarded because trust me it is no mean task. I myself have tried booking Tatkal tickets few times and I must confess I have failed more often than not. Technically speaking, the official website for booking train tickets needs exhaustive performance testing. A huge number of hits simultaneously affect the functionality of the website.

I still remember the first time I went to a ticket booking center to book a Tatkal Ticket. I was pretty sure that I will get it as I reached there an hour before the scheduled time. There were already a lot of people standing in the queue but still I joined that very queue out of optimism. I was so nervous as if they were the most crucial moments of my life. As they say- “It never rains but it pours”, the person sitting at the booking counter was turtle-slow. When my turn came finally, the same person sitting at the booking counter was busy on a phone call. Although I requested him twice but he didn’t notice at all, as if denying my very existence. Finally, he announced- “The Tatkal Quota is already over”; sounded like “Game Over” to me. I came back to my place disappointed and this was pretty much the end of it.

The list of failures is long! A few days back, I tried booking a Tatkal ticket from my place. Well, I was under the false notion that a good internet connection is all it takes to eschew the long queue of Tatkal Reservation. Forget about booking the ticket, even logging in the website was like impossible. It took me almost forty minutes to login the website. Again, it all went futile and there were no tickets left. I went late to the office because of this and was taken under the scanner by my boss. So, it culminated into a bad day! To all the people who brag about their achievements, ever tried booking a Tatkal ticket!

Rohan Kalia