Timely help

Written By M. Vanitha Nagarajan - Reader, Woman's Era.

I had gone on LTC to Delhi with my husband and 2 kids aged 9 and 4. Keeping Delhi as the base, we decided to visit places like Agra, Jaipur and Haridwar. We then planned the dates of travel and booked the tickets accordingly. Our last destination was Jaipur. The next day, after our return from Jaipur, we were to take the train to Chennai.

The whole journey went off smoothly as planned. We loved the Pink city very much and with the Hawa Mahal and Jal Mahal still green in our memory, we reached Jaipur station. To our dismay, we could not find our names in any of the reservation lists.

When we checked the tickets, we found they were booked for the next day, the day we were to catch the train to Chennai. The train was to leave in an hour's time. In panic we ran helter-skelter searching for the ticket examiner.

As I was the only one with a smattering of Hindi, my husband stood helpless by me while I found the assistant station master in his office and begged him for help.

He immediately came out of his office and helped us secure a seating accommodation in the unreserved compartment. He asked us to hand over the tickets booked for the next day to him with our Chennai address.

We blindly followed his instructions, paid him for the tickets issued, handed over the tickets booked for having the next day and boarded the train just in time. Thanking our stars for having received timely help, we reached Delhi and left for Chennai the next day as planned.

Thereafter we completely forgot about the refund of the cost of fare. Imagine our surprise, when we received a money order from that assistant station master for the refund money less the money order commission.

In these days of corruption, such honest officers do exist. I only wish that our country had more officers like him. In my ordeal, I did not even notice his name but his deed is etched in my memory forever.