My friend Dian used to say,"Experience is always expensive". I have only heard it but not experience it. It may I have felt it before but I could not share to my friends. We were always listened to others' expensive experience in the hostel in ADAPT, Mumbai. We had fun and laugh during our dinner time every night.
Suddenly we had faced problem in our hostel. My friend Dian had problem with passport. She had got visa valid till Feb 10, 2010 only. So she requested me to go to FRRO office to extended her visa date. Mistakenly we went to the internal immigration office in Mumbai then we planned to go to FRRO office in Church Gate, Mumbai. We called to phone the office and they replied that it will closed at 1.00pm. Then we decided to visit office only so that it will be easier for us to go tomorrow. It was very far from the place we stand. We asked to the Taxi Driver but they don't know the place. Finally on Auto driver guided us to take train and go to Church Gate. So we gone to Santacruch train station and bought a ticket. It cost only Rs. 7 each. But got the train and entered to the train it was too packed. But we were entered to luggage quarter. The train end at Church Gate. We were confused because where to show ticket, who will come to see it, who is ticket holder or not and many things in our mind. We got out from the crowd and nobody cared for us.
We entered to the FRRO office and there we met with the customer service. She suggested that it was business visa so it cannot be extended and she should left Mumbai at 10 February other wise she had to pay $70 each day as fine.
We got back with thinking possible other alternatives. She planned to visit Nepal for 3 days and extended visa in Nepal. We been to Marines Line beach and got back to Curch Gate. We bought the ticket again and we entered to the train. One of the person behind us suggested us go with slow train because in fast train it will be to crowd so that you cannot exit in Bandra station. As his suggestion we got out and entered to the slow train. We got seat there and we were happy with the service and the facilities of train in India. We have got our destination and we got out from the quarter in our station. Suddenly one government officer called us. He told us to show our ticket and we shown him our ticket. He told us to come in the office of train station. We followed him and entered to the office. There he told us that we were in 1 class quarter with II class ticket. We were fined. We told everything about us but they were not ready to listen to us. There were many people caught traveling without ticket, I class seat with II class ticket and etc. Finally we were ready to pay fine because we believed in norms and regulation. Actually the ticket price for I class was 52. We bought a ticket of Rs 6. So we have to pay the Rs 46 the ticket difference and Rs 250 fine each to the train station. We took the bill and got back to hostel.
It was my an expensive experience in train in Mumbai. That night every body laugh with our experience.
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