Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Published on: 06/7/08 7:41 AM

Travel: Train rides I have gone on

JOURNEYS

Ticket to ride

 


A recent news item said that all the short-haul trains, the Shatabdis, Deccan Queen, the Brindaban Express , were running almost always full, while flights were going near empty.

Oil prices apart, this didn’t surprise me one bit.

The thing is, I still remember the days when train travel was plush. Really, no other word will suffice. There were attached bathrooms, attenders, the food was actually good. If it was all a tad expensive, well, it was worth the money spent.

This was First Class, of course. I recall the slump, too. That was a longish period, some details given later in the article, during which I have travelled with mosquitoes, mice, roaches and nasty co-travellers, though the Railways can’t be held to blame for the last.

Trains would never ever arrive or depart in time. Stations were dirty as hell. As for the stinking toilets on the trains, no words can possibly do justice to their squalor. All this in air-conditioned coaches.

And now, I find the pendulum has swung again. Someone — could it be Lalu? — has put the romance back in train travel. Oh alright, you do need the time for a rail journey. However,
that is the only prerequisite.



I travel quite a bit, and being first an army brat, then an army wife, much of that travel has been and is being done by rail.

Flights were always the last option when it came to domestic travel. At first, it was because of the prohibitive costs of airline tickets, then it became pure habit. And willy-nilly, I became a convert and began to enjoy my train journeys.

I became an avid fan of travel writers who were also railway buffs, Stephen Alter, Paul Theroux and their ilk. While I don’t seek out branch lines, I still miss those steam engines.



Leisurely affair

Train travel is a leisurely affair and the enforced inactivity forces you into a pleasant limbo. For most people, the rocking movement of the carriages is a sleeping aid. You get freeze frames of the Taj Mahal, the Doodhsagar Falls, the dense forests of Karwar, and these sights stay with you long after you have chugged past them.

You get to sample chikki at Lonavala station, oranges at Nagpur, peta at Agra Cantonment
station, banana fritters at Alapuzha.


         


A few months ago, I did Rajasthan by rail. No, not aboard one of those fancy royal saloons- on- wheels. I took ordinary trains but in the First Class air-conditioned coaches.

And once I settled in, I’d gaze about me. The cabins usually had light wood panelling, a wash basin, a panel with lights to show whether the loos were vacant or occupied. There was a slim cupboard to hang my stuff in, if I wanted to.

The curtain rod was faux brass, the curtains themselves were thick and of a pleasing shade of maroon. They matched the deep red upholstery, which was clean. What’s more, there was a carpet underfoot  and that too, passed my stringent scrutiny.

The attendant would come by and spray room freshener and instead of  inducing instant asthma, it gave the small cabin a nice pine-scented ambience. There was a pink plastic dustbin in one corner, a steel shoe rack in the other.

I was able to use my laptop and charge it, too. At mealtimes, we were served on real china, with linen napkins, our personal steward pulling out a folding table from underneath the seat and setting the plates. And last but certainly not the least, the toilet had tissue rolls!

Somehow, even the harrowing train journeys of the past now  take on a mellow hue, given the perspective of time and distance.



I recall being stranded, many moons ago, on a bridge atop the river Krishna in Andhra Pradesh; floods had hit the area and all trains were halted. That was almost three days, and food and
drinking water ran out by the second day. Bad scene, but one of my co-travellers was a delightful Irish priest, Father Kennedy, and some of his pragmatism slowly rubbed off on me.

Elsewhere, I have run, in a scene straight out of a Hindi film, after a slow train chugging out of Bhopal station. It picked up speed just as I was within handrail-grabbing distance. Well, I got to see the very interesting city of Bhopal in the time it took to catch the next train out, so something was salvaged after all.

Something, I have realised, is always salvaged from the worst journeys.



Old-world charm

So much for the bad trips. There have been great trips, delightful way stations with pots of flowers and names like Runnymede, Victorian buildings with monkey tops. Disused tracks with wildflowers growing amok all around. Level crossings manned by cheerful waving men. There have been convivial  companions aboard trains, much shared laughter and networking, too.

A powder room in a Shatabdi, complete with a full-length mirror. Squabbling families, aggressive men, insufferable bores, demonic children…  well, they have all fallen grist to my writing  mill and I have duly written about them, so I mustn’t complain!

The toy trains in the Nilgiris and Shimla are charming rides about which much newsprint has been expended, so I won’t go down that track.


 


And the landscape. Oh, the landscape. There really is nothing like seeing India from a train window. The sands of Jaisalmer or the Rann of Kutch, the neat and orderly wadis of Maharashtra. The sparse and rocky landscapes of the Deccan giving way to the verdancy and backwaters of Kerala. The emerald-hued massive ferns of north Bengal. The gigantic sal trees of Madhya Pradesh turning gold in the gloaming. The deep canals of Punjab holding celadon-coloured waters. The sharp air that hits you in the face when you get out at Pathankot.

The unforgettable coastline journeys with waterfalls, needle-thin in some places, and gushing torrents in others; deep ravines, green valleys, the sun playing hide and seek on the softly contoured hills. The shimmer of the sea beyond.



Tunnels so narrow you can touch the sides; tunnels so long, you unwittingly hold your breath waiting for the glimmer of light. Bridges of all sizes and spans, rivers swollen and sparse. Impromptu cricket matches in dusty grounds by the tracks.

And then, there is the destination. For all one hears of the journey being more meaningful than the destination, truth to tell, it is always good to arrive someplace, anyplace.

As a certain Jhumpa L said, wherever you go, you meet yourself at the end of the journey.

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/07/06/stories/2008070650300800.htm

This ran in THE HINDU of 6 July 2008.

Related Links:

Travel: To Sakleshpur in a camper

Travel: Just One Place….

Travel: The places and pottery connect

Photo Feature: Paths…

 

 

FeatureFeaturespretty train stationsrail journeystrain ridetrain traveltrains

Sheila Kumar • June 7, 2008


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