Bihar's tipplers take train to UP for 40-minutes happy hour

BALLIA: Welcome aboard the newly-christened Maikhana Express. Dipsomaniacs and even the less desperate from Bihar are buying season tickets on trains connecting their "dry" towns with firewater stations across the border in Uttar Pradesh. All for a frenetic, 40-minute party.

The town of Ballia is dusty, hot and muggy. Within minutes of the arrival of the 55017 Chhapra-Mau passenger train at 6 pm at Suraimanpur railway station, the only country liquor shop nearby is spillling over with customers.

Dazed passengers rush to the counter, buy their poison, get drunk real fast - some even spirit away a bottle or two in their bags for later - and head back to the railway station to catch the 55132 Chhapra passenger at 6.40 pm to head back home in bonedry Bihar.

"Business is frenzied ever since the Bihar government banned liquor," says the salesman at the counter who is free to speak to TOI only after the swarms have left. "Some even fill up liquor in water bottles or soft drink bottles after downing shots from one or two 200 ml bottles here. Tipplers are arriving on passenger trains in large numbers and leaving for home immediately after slaking their thirst," says the salesman at the country liquor shop in Suraimanpur, Ballia.

These passenger trains, called Maikhana Express, ferries tipplers from Ribilganj, Gautam Sthan and Chhapra. "To avoid wasting time at the counters and save on tickets, we buy monthly season tickets for our trips," says Anand Pal.

Records at the North Eastern Railways office showed a surge of 31 per cent in MST passengers from Sivan to Ballia in April. In Suraimanpur and Chhapra, the rise has been 19 per cent and 20 per cent in MST holders. Railway officials said such numbers were usually seen during summer vacations in May and June.