FACING THE REALITY

                                   Everyone dreams of a Corruption free India, even me. But what to do when you have to loosen your pocket ?  I was faced with this situation twice this week on my journey in Train.

• First Incident:-      I was seated along with people who were telling me to give Rs 50/- to TT to travel in Reservation compartment, I was uneasy at this. I said to them that I will give the TT the exact official amount.Their reply was as you wish!!.   and the TT came donno what idea crossed his mind he asked me to pay first. I directly asked him that i need official slip with stamp,sign,his name everything, he hesitated first and slowly wrote it and charged me.                                                                                                                                                                                              Then came the turn of others to pay, they offered him Rs 20/-, each one of the 5 people. He said they have to pay official amount of  88/-. They were shocked, they pleaded that this amount would do and also said don't care about the boy he doesn't know anything. I added seeing their woes that I am a student and no press !!! but donno what happened he didn't accept anything from them and asked all of them to leave this compartment !!!! I was shocked... All of them went away, I was regretting my action.                                                                                                                                                                                      Only I was left there everyone had to leave since I paid the right amount. I later explained myself that what I did was correct   and here comes the climax.................... all of them met me outside the train at my destination !!!!  I said sorry to them and that i didn't expect him to do like that. Then came the most famous comment " What can you alone do to this country".
•                                                                     I immediately replied as if it was burning in my mouth that if every one thinks the same then what would happen to this country. I said that if you do this you are making it a habit of giving bribes because of which in the end you would suffer, I even said that because of this, funds for various programme's by government are not reaching common man, students not getting scholarships in time, poor people not getting proper medical treatment because of everyone's habit of paying bribes and making more greedy officer's.                 
•                                                 I said these things and I was utterly happy with my response and action though i was enemy of the day to them, forgetting that I came there because of my Grand-father's death.                                                                                                                                       
• Second Incident:-  It was during my return journey, my ticket wasn't confirmed. So I had no berth to sleep on a 23 hr long journey. All my relatives were suggesting me to approach TT repeatedly and even bribe him to allot a berth to me. I tried initially to convince him but I received  the same reply everytime "Jagah nahi hai Dadar tak". People there hinted to bribe him, but i refused to do it.
•                             So, though i had an AC ticket, because of my action i had to sleep on floor of a sleeper compartment. These were my experiences these last 4 days. I met a side of reality which is absent in our beautiful isolated islands( campuses ). I have many doubts in this journey which would be my next post.                                                                                                         signing off,                                                                                                                      Vishnu Vardhan