There are many things that make up the experience of being Indian. And one of them undoubtedly is the great Indian rail ride; a true slice of the chaotic, strangely captivating, miraculously functional mess that our country is.
Trains are a world within a world, with their own set of rules, customs and characters. From the time you set foot inside a Railway station, with its quaint weighing machines right out of a village fair handing out cardboard snippets of wisdom, you are transported into a mini Indian village of sorts. Then the train arrives; carrying proud names on its shades of blue, dusty from many wanderings. You find your designated seat and if you’re in the sleeper class, you politely remove ticket less travelers faking sleep in your berth and settle down into your home for the next few hours or days. Then you greet the neighbours with a smile as you chain your luggage and spread newspapers under it. You then take out your book but soon get lost in the landscape outside and the chattering inside; reading the same page again and again.
The first time one travels on the Indian railways, there’s a sense of surprise that a system as complicated as it works smoothly; that the tracks are switched at the right places and that the pantry delivered your order with precision. It strikes you as one of the few things that runs with relative regularity in this land of mayhem (it and the Infosys!). For a traveler, the train journey is as exciting any destination he could be headed to; a capsule of sensations which this grand country of ours can throw up. The train whisks you through green plains and as you hoot and pass into another stop on the way, strange voices and tongues ring around you; village women selling fruit, the ever present tea vendor in another avatar and with a different flavored brew, bangle sellers, over dressed dames selling chappathi sticks while calling out to passengers in many different languages. Some of your fellow travelers get off and a new assortment settle into their seats; sometimes a loud contingent of Marathi women, speaking in grating voices, or a group of middle aged malayalees, discussing politics and agriculture all day. Then there are the beggars; singing blind women, amputees and horrifyingly disabled men, little children with their mothers whose desperation and vacant eyes move you into handing out change even as you tell yourself you are, in principle against such an act.
All through this, the train chugs along, rocking you to sleep. Another stop and you’re woken up by a little fellow who sweeps the filthy compartment floor on all fours in anticipation of a few coins from kind travelers grateful for the slightly cleaner floor. You go on. The tunnels play hide ans seek if you’re on the Konkan; plunging you into darkness and then bursting suddenly into the sun. As you enter the ‘Northern states’ there’s the familiar shouts of ‘vada paav’ vendors. Then a hush falls and the men and women fake sleep as ‘Hijras’ board the Express;clapping their hands and prodding terrorized travelers as they go from one compartment to the next. Spare change doesn’t cut with them, and caught in a fix, you fish out a ten rupee note and smile embarrassed at their blessings. The pantry worker negotiates the busy ‘streets’ inside the train as he delivers meals and goes on the routine ‘Tea-Cofee-Cool drinks-vegetable cutlet’ rounds. And if he and you are from the same part of the country, there’s a friendly nod and a special enquiry in the language you share. “chaaya vende?”
The day passes quickly; time’s passage marked only by the stations stops and meal times. And once the pantry workers serve dinner and take a last round selling water, its time to go to bed. As if on cue, berths go up into their place and blankets come out. You’re left with no option but to shut your book and switch of the lights in polite solidarity with the sleepy eyed majority. The you can either take out your own blanket or join the small crowd of youngsters charging their phones at one end of the train; extension cords in hand. Or even better, you can sit on the door way of the train with your legs dangling; enjoying the chill of the night and the lights in distant villages, and thinking of the next day and the encounters that await you.
