Train rides are the best way to travel. The best way after road trips. At one time I used to love road trips but these days with the frequent hold ups because of agitations, heavy traffic, bad roads or just bad luck road trips have become less enjoyable than they were when the roads were narrower, restrooms on the way non-existent and simple cars on the road.

On the other hand, trains rides aren’t much better either with crowded train stations, pesky vendors and of course the stinky toilets. But then if one has to go from place A to place B, one has to take some form of transport isn’t it? So trains are the better way to travel if there is no convenient airport at the other end. There is something comforting about the regular sound of the wheels going on the tracks, the scenery whizzing past and the occasional stops for seemingly no reason at all.

With my recent travels abroad, I think travel is not really on the cards for me. Almost every journey has some hiccups along the way . At one time I used to take these in my stride and laugh looking at the funny side, but these days I am getting increasingly anxious of what might happen on the way literally find myself holding my breath till I come home again.

Any ways, I find that over the past few months I have travelled a fair bit by trains. With e ticketing the norm, I had collected several e tickets on my phone. So when I went to Pune early last week, I was quite astonished to find myself sitting on exactly the same seat in the same coach that I was sitting on when I was returning to Mumbai almost a month earlier to the day. Marvelling at the coincidence of it, I told Hubby Dear to abandon his allotted seat in the same compartment told him to sit next to me. This is pretty much accepted in Indian trains where most passengers regularly oblige, especially since the tickets are allotted electronically and passengers travelling together may very well find themselves in different coaches or seats that are far away. Besides, the train attendants were quite confident that the whole trains was quite empty so switching seats wouldn’t be much of a problem.

So we sat down .

A few minutes later the Ticket Collector came along and admonished Hubby Dear for sitting on the wrong seat. To make matters worse, he was horrified that I showed him a ticket for the wrong journey! Before he could fine me or worse still make me get off at the next station, I found my ticket and triumphantly showed it to him. But it was still the wrong seat. However, the TC also assured me that the original passenger shouldn’t have much of a problem changing seats.

How wrong he turned out to be!

When the young man got on, he wasn’t too happy when we asked him to sit on Hubby Dear’s allotted seat. He grudgingly said he would have a look at the seat and think about it. I wasn’t surprised when he returned saying that he would like to sit on his own seat and made Hubby Dear get up.

I was quite miffed bur didn’t want to push the issue because I was definitely in the wrong seat. So I sat quietly and when the train began to move, settled down to eating my burger which was to be my dinner.

All was well till my co-passenger got whiff of the buff burger that offended his olfactory sensibilities as well as his vegetarian self. Before I could have the second bite, I found Hubby Dear back next to me!

It seems the young man regretted his decision of coming between the two of us and decided to go to Hubby Dear’s seat far away from the Good Flippin’ Burger that I was chomping on.

I’ve never enjoyed a burger more and couldn’t have been more grateful for chasing away the reluctant passenger with the whiff of a buff burger and restoring my preferred co-passenger in the seat next to me!

Ciao,