950

So today morning, I was just thinking (well, not "just" but the back-story isn't relevant) how I can spend 950 bucks.

The cost of a sleeper class railway ticket between Delhi and Bombay is 425. Sleeper class, mind you, is how a lot of people travel - it may not have air-conditioning but is definitely an infinitely more comfortable alternative to the second sitting a.k.a. general in which the vast majority travels, and that too without reservation.

Now suppose, just suppose, that I start missing Bombay - well, not Bombay per se, but the regular rail trips between Delhi and Bombay. So technically, I can take the Golden Temple (earlier, Frontier) Mail from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station at 7:45am, reach Dadar next morning at about 5 (or later, as long as it is not much more than 2 hours late), take a local up to Bandra (that journey costs 4), walk to the terminus and catch the Swaraj Express which departs at 7.55am, and gets me back to Nizamuddin at 4.10 the next morning.

Of course, some convenient assumptions are necessary. I stay near this station in Delhi (I don't), so I can walk over and hence don't spend any money travelling to and from it, not even when I have to book the tickets in person, in order to minimize costs as well as ensure reservation. I don't care about the morning activities (I do, so I take care of them before leaving home, in the trains or at one of the Bombay stations). I am carrying food (this I can do, even though I hate the extra baggage) - only for one trip though. Food on the return trip (veg) costs 40 per meal (zilch if I starve myself).

The grand total, then, is Rs. 934. So I start off with 950, travel from Delhi to Bombay and back, don't deprive myself of food, sleep, hygiene, etc. and am still left with 16 bucks.

Alternatively, I can go blowing up the entire amount in one go by spending about 90 minutes of an evening, watching a movie that I may or - and this is more likely - may not like, all the while seated in my temporary throne in the so-called "Gold Class" of a South Delhi multiplex located within a mall that, fancy as it is, is far from being the most upmarket mall of the area, let alone the city.

Ah, the good life. Cheers.