Techie earning ₹30 LPA reveals why he still prefers trains over flights: ‘I had no job…’
X user Chirag Deshmukh shared the “funny story” of his encounter with a software developer on a train.
It is an opinion generally accepted in India that taking flights is more comfortable than travelling in trains, if not more cost-effective. While the cost of booking a flight can vary widely based on distance, season and airline, trains provide a more affordable alternative to air travel. The affordability, of course, comes at the cost of time - train journeys can take days to complete a journey that can be covered in hours on an airplane.

Perhaps this is why an X user was recently surprised to see a high-earning techie opting for train travel rather than taking a flight.
X user Chirag Deshmukh shared the “funny story” of his encounter with the software developer in a post on the social media platform. In his post, he explained why the techie preferred to travel via the railway rather than by air - and the sweet revelation is winning hearts online.
Deshmukh said that he met the software developer on a train. The developer apparently worked at a big company and earned over ₹30 lakh per annum.
“With that kind of money, why aren't you flying instead of taking the train?” Deshmukh asked the techie after they got talking.
The techie revealed that after completing his education, he was struggling to find a job. It was a chance encounter with a stranger on a train that earned him a referral and helped him land his first job. Since that day, he decided to take trains rather than flights, except in the case of an emergency.
“He smiled and said, ‘After college, I had no job and was struggling. One day, while traveling by train, I met a person whose elder brother helped me get a referral that landed me my first job. Since then, I decided to always travel by train—unless it's an emergency,’” Deshmukh revealed in his X post.
Take a look at his post below:
The anecdote elicited a range of responses, and some social media users shared their own stories of propitious encounters.
“I can relate, my first internship offer was through a guy later who became family, sat next to me in Ahmedabad Rajdhani from AMD,” wrote X user Prakhar.
“Absolutely. Many conversations happens during that time especially in longer journeys. I remember having a conversation with a tech lead who explained me importance of cloud technologies wayback in 2015 . It got me hooked into the world of AWS,” recalled Sourav.
Another X user called it called it a “Peak Indian Railway Moment.”
“Amazing , thanks for sharing.. hope he refers some more talents in his travelling,” a user added.
Some people raised doubts on the authenticity of the story, although Deshmukh insisted it was a real story.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSanya JainSanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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