When I was reminded of ‘Confirmed Ticket’

HARISH MONGA

The moment you hear the words – Confirmed Ticket – from someone’s mouth, the first thought that comes to your mind is, that it’s good that he got the confirmed ticket of railway booking. Thanks to the railway authorities in the online booking software, they have introduced the issuance of the confirmed ticket only, otherwise one continues to process the waiting list or approach the railway authorities with ‘sifarish’ to get the ticket confirmed from the official quota.

TRAVELLING BY TRAIN

When it comes to travelling in India by train, the first question that arises is how to get a confirmed railway ticket. We all have our stories about the uncertainty of getting a confirmed ticket at the Indian Railways. Standing in queues at the reservation counters with family or friends accompanying you in another queue is also not a sure-shot way of getting the desired train ticket. Even though IRCTC helped in changing the scenario of booking train tickets in India by doing online reservations, there are times when getting an online ticket in ‘tatkal quota’ also becomes next to impossible. But this is not the whole story.

REAL MEANING OF CONFIRMED TICKET

But now, I am going to share with you the real meaning of ‘confirmed ticket’. Have you ever thought of equating the ‘confirmed ticket’ with your life? Even when I searched on Google, the choice given by the search engine was PNR – Passenger Name Record – status online. Hardly few of us think about this as we don’t have time for such issues at a young age – an age to enjoy study and settle in life.

WHY WE FORGET

But, we forget that everything in nature is vanishable with time, in the case of both living and non-living. This process in nature is going from centuries and creating histories of various events globally.

REMEMBERING KEEPS US ALIVE

We all too are making our record of life in the memory of others known or unknown to us. We maintain relations according to our deeds and remember after leaving for our heavenly abode, accordingly. Anyhow, remembering keeps us alive, either way.

FRANKLY SPLEAKING

Frankly speaking, one of my classmates, who was active in his studies but I never thought that after retirement, would deliver such a nice discourse on lifestyles. He is now exclusively involved in serving the cows –at the GauShala – by joining a group of retirees.

WE ARE BORN WITH CONFIRMED TICKET

The other day, he was invited to deliver a lecture at the meeting of the Senior Citizen Forum, he very nicely portrayed the story of Krishan[1]Sudama, Radha-Krishan with references to holy scriptures. He spoke in a very melodious voice in a poetic style that we should always do something good for the next generations by fighting the battle on various issues like illiteracy, shortage of food and water, diseases, global warming pollution so that our coming generations have amity and abundance instead of festering enmity. In the end, he particularly made a reference that we are born with a ‘confirmed ticket’ for leaving this beautiful world one day to create a space for the new generations.

Thanks to him for showing me the real meaning of ‘confirmed ticket’ about our life.