On a fine day in 2020, when the world was still blissfully unaware of the impending lockdown, we got an invitation for a wedding at our friend's home, Jodhpur.

We made some last-minute plans and decided to book tickets as a connecting journey as direct trains weren't available. From AF-JP, we decided on the AF-AII ICE, and after a few hours of layover at JP, we were going to take the Mandore Express, where another friend was joining us from Delhi.
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I was busy with something, so another friend of mine booked the tickets, and I was surprised that we got CNF window seats at such short notice. Good for us. So, another trip to Rajasthan, what could go wrong. On the day of the journey, we reached Agra Fort, and we got to know what all could go wrong, something we didn't even slightly imagine.

We boarded the C1 and started placing our luggage on the luggage rack. It was the center seat, and we had ordered from Domino's. Pretty chill friends trip. Except for the fact that after a few minutes, a family boarded and told us that we were in their seats. No, ma'am, we have the tickets. Look at them. Yeah, C1, but same seats, same day. I, being the master of sweet talk, persuaded them to leave us alone and talk to the TTE about this discrepancy. Everything sorted out.

And then I asked my friend to show me the ticket. Nothing seemed wrong until I saw the month of travel. In haste, my friend had booked the tickets for 18th March, which was exactly a month ahead of the day we were sitting on the train. So, I told everyone to calm down and went to that family who were still beating their heads over their ticket. I told them that we didn't check the refreshed status of our tickets, and we were allotted seats in the C2 coach. Apologized to them for the discrepancy and deboarded the coach.

Outside, all three of us gave the scolding of a lifetime to our friend who booked the ticket. But there still was an issue, how to reach Jaipur. After all, all the shopping and makeovers shouldn't go to waste, right. They checked, and there weren't any trains taking us to Jaipur with enough buffer for Mandore. I asked everyone to calm down and let the expert do the work. I checked, and luckily, 4 seats got available in current in the 2S of same train.

What else could we do? Let it be 2S for a few hours. First disappointment, bench type seats, no issues, there wasn't much of a crowd. Then came the second disappointment after the train entered Rajasthan, 2S became the GS and we had to adjust a lot more people on our seats, because that's what good samaritans do, not that we had another choice. Only relief being that due to our lady friends, the crowd was much well behaved in our cubicle than rest of the coach.

Anyway, the journey went a lot better than expected, we got a lot of laughs over the incident that happened earlier that day, even my mother joked about it after the initial scoldings over the phone. Got to talk to a lot of Rajasthani people, and it was fun. We deboarded at JP and took a stroll through the Bazars of Jaipur. We also went inside to take a look at the interiors of JP Double Decker as it was our first time seeing a Double Decker train.

After a well-deserved rest, we went on the PFs to board our next train. Well, we were waiting on the PF when the HWH-JU arrived, and looking at the empty coaches, it struck our minds that we could've got CNF seats despite the WL during bookings. And as the train departed, like a wave of regret, a wave of water soaked me. Have I told that we took the journey in February, and it was still a chilly weather outside. Some lazy waterman left the pipe watering connected, and it came out with pressure when the train departed.

You may think that here ends the string of mishappenings. But lady luck still had a last mischief up her sleeves. This second ticket was booked by our friend who was coming from Delhi to have all the seats together. Just that he forgot to tell us a crucial piece of information. Since 3AC had WL status, he booked in SL because how could five college kids afford 2AC tickets that were available. As soon as the train moved, it felt as if we were traveling through Siberia.

No one had brought blankets, well, except for me. I brought two, and the perk of being 6 feet tall, my jackets could be used as blankets. Now, who is laughing for over-packing stuff. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We enjoyed an almost empty SL coach, a beautiful sunrise, and the scenic beauty Rajasthan has to offer.

After the celebrations, roaming around the streets of Jodhpur and a great hospitality, we returned. Yeah, you guessed it, in the JU-HWH Express. Although we had to book the tickets via the HQ quota, the onward journey experience was enough adventure for us. Needless to say, I slept all the way back and woke up only at ETW.

So, this was my journey to the blue city which had enough twists and turns to tell it apart from the plain, regular train journeys and give it a special place in the section called 'Travelogues'.

Kumud.

Top 5 railway stations of Lucknow NR Division on the basis of footfall-
1- Lucknow Charbagh
2- Varanasi Jn.
3- Ayodhya (Cantt.+Dham)
4- Unnao Jn.
5-...
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Sultanpur Jn.

Unnao Jn. really surprised me. Despite of being in between Lucknow and Kanpur, Unnao having such a huge footfall but low revenue shows that there is enough public for trains but due to lesser number of trains having stoppages here, railways isn't properly utilising this station.