“Sir, you’ve boarded the wrong train.” My jaw dropped and eyes bulged, as I realized what the train conductor had said. We were about two hours into our train journey from Siliguri to Kolkata, when the conductor got to checking our tickets around 10pm. The first worry that popped in my head was: where are we going then? We could be headed for Chennai or Delhi or anywhere…how are we going to catch our flight from Kolkata? Luckily for us, the train we boarded was also bound for Kolkata, albeit a different station. It had departed 15 minutes after the train we were supposed to get on. I still have no idea how we got on the wrong train. My best guess is that there were two trains on the same platform; sometimes in India, the platforms are really long and each end is numbered a different platform. My next worry was what about our seats/bunks- where are we going to sleep if we’re in someone elses seat? Fortunately, the conductor informed me, one of the seats was vacant and the lady that had the other one didn’t get on at the station she was scheduled to, so it looked like we’d be okay. We suspect perhaps she got on the wrong train too, since she was supposed to get on at Siliguri also. My last worry was about the conductor. We were ticketless and he could say that we had to buy new tickets, which are relatively expensive. If he told us that, I’d have to bribe him with a lesser amount and I didn’t want to have to deal with all that. Again, we lucked out as he said we were “officially” ticketless, but it should be okay. Considering we boarded the wrong train last night, I feel pretty fortunate to be in Kolkata today.