Train Journeys

I find train journeys exciting. The longer, the better.

In India, trains are still a popular mode of transportation for long distances. And till a few years back, unless you were travelling for business and your company could afford air travel, everyone travelled by trains. A typical journey from Delhi to Mumbai could be anywhere between 16 and 24 hours.

I did my first long distance train journey when I was 12 years old. I was travelling from Delhi to Kolkata by Rajdhani(the fastest long distance train in India) and this train had very few stops on the way. Indian trains are noisy and the windows are usually dusty, so the view is blurred. We travelled in the second AC compartment and there were two berths. The meals were served by the attendants and then sheets and quilts were handed out for sleeping. In the background, India's radio was always playing with some disturbance. All in all, the journey was fairly comfortable and I read the magazines that one usually ends up buying at the station stalls. From the windows, I saw the India that one only views during such long journeys, an India that we never really go out and visit, an India that we know exists, but is far removed from our lives. The train passes by a number of villages, fields and one sees people carrying on their daily life, and for a few moments I usually get lost in my thoughts and try to visualize the day to day life of these people. They are poor, many of them look undernourished and I wonder what role the daily passing of the train through their village plays in their life. Do they look at this as a way to reach a land far far away? Do they visualize about the place where this train finally stops? Does a young lad ever think of running away and going where he train goes?

The next year, we did the same journey again, but this time in the first class compartment. We had a coupe to ourselves, which means, a small room in a train with clean windows with curtains and a nearly full time attendant.

When one steps out of a train after a long journey, the feeling of the body moving with the train's vibrations takes sometime to go.

My next long distance train journey happened almost a decade later when I was in my early twenties. I was passing out of college in two months, I was starting a job soon afterwards, and more importantly, my parents had been kind enough to allow me to go with my friends to Goa(one of the most popular holiday spot in India...sun, sand and sea).

We were a large group of friends going to Goa. All logistics were handled by a couple of people. Most of us just packed our bags, and on the day of the journey, we got into the cab and headed for the station. We were going by a slow train and this was going to be a 36 hour journey with two nights in the train.

While looking for our coach number and seat, I got to know that I was going to travel in a coach called sleeper class. There was no AC, the windows did not close properly. The coach was dusty, food had to be bought where the train stopped, the coach doors were open, so hawkers, beggars and eunuchs could move through the coaches. During the day, I felt hot and at night cold. The train stopped a number of times, I heard people talk in languages that I did not understand. The train stopped at lesser known towns. I saw people climb on top of trains so that they can travel without a ticket. In short, it was as close as I have ever got to really seeing how an ordinary Indian commutes and goes about his day to day life. I call this person an ordinary Indian, because the majority of our population which is not visible to the outside world is made of people I encountered during the train journey. People for whom there is no world outside the place where they grew up, who have no connection or perception of the word "abroad". People who are far removed from the IT boom, or a cyclone in a distant part of the country. They have the same dis-connect with my life and my environment. I know as much about them as they know about me. Their definition of India is very different from mine.

The smell, the dust and the sounds were real and not muffled by the veils that can be created by getting into the better coaches. It was a journey through half of the sub-continent and it was felt by all my senses. It is a journey that I always remember as an experience of another India. Every now and then one hears praises of India's progress and the pet phrase "India Shining". I am quite sure that if I do that journey again, little would have changed.