So I'm on Jamnagar Express rn, my waitlisted 3AC ticket was never confirmed and I had to urgently travel from Trivandrum to Ahmedabad, for a PhD interview.
I arrived at the station 4 hrs early and took an unreserved ticket from the counter worth ₹555, thinking I'll ask TTE for some vacant birth and adjust the ticket amount.
I sat in general for some time, after one hour I went to find TTE on the train, Soon I found one, I made a request for vacant seats. He said none are available right now, and asked me to wait in the area connecting two B coaches (3AC), while he checks
Then later after 10 minutes, another comes, makes hand gestures to ask me to show a ticket. I showed him my unreserved ticket. He snatches it out of my hands, then pulls out the receipt books and asks me for ₹1000+ fine.
I took him to the previous TTE and asked him to tell the new TTE that he told me to wait in the connecting area. He starts to comply with him saying my ticket is invalid. I asked them to give me my unreserved ticket back and that I'll go back to the general coach.
They refused to return my ticket and insisted that I pay the fine. I did a quick Google search and found out my unreserved ticket was in fact valid since I was travelling for more than 200km.I showed an image of my ticket which I had clicked earlier for just in case. I confronted them with that in front of other people, they quietly and quickly returned my ticket and asked me to go back to the general coach, while seeing each other.
So, now here I am now in general coach which is feeling like an oven, writing this long post to distract myself of this heat, and wishing best of luck to myself for this 37 hr long journey.