I face the screen by sitting up a bit straighter, assailed by a fluttery sense of unease, controlling the strong itch to do something. Test fever You could say.

It&rsquos usually like this when I am watching a page load on IRCTC&rsquos website, surely loved and reviled in equal measure by gadzillions of users like me, who probably blame themselves for overloading the reluctant beast. I&rsquom sure you have done it, too &mdash waited 4m 37s to reach the list of trains available, wishing for a glass of water you are afraid to fetch in case something actually happens on the screen I work the system at least a dozen times every month but I remain intensely superstitious about getting a booking of choice. Probably because I almost never do (cancellations, now, they are a breeze). But grumpy doesn&rsquot begin to describe the way I get when, two months and three-and-a-half weeks in advance, having decided to keep-a-ticket-handy-anyway, I end up with a side berth after paying full fare for a confirmed AC II Tier ticket.

Of course this happens to everybody &mdash the system allocates numbers in mysterious ways &mdash but I want to know why. Why can&rsquot we pre-select seats when we book ahead, like we do in an aircraft Why should the passenger on a side berth pay the same ticket price as the chap spread out on a smooth, wide bed in the main bay, his legs luxuriously stretched, his body spared the contortion of a claustrophobic side-upper (the dreaded &lsquoSU&rsquo on my printout), his spine safe from the pokey joint that attaches the flattened backrests of the Machiavellian &lsquoSL&rsquo Why not be charged less when you get so much less Is that so difficult to conceive Are you listening, Hon&rsquoble Minister of Railways Sir...