For some reason, I hate flying. Airplanes seem very impersonal to me, and too closed. Instead of the usual chaiwallas and chanawaalas , I find stewardesses coming to me with a sandwich if any at all and I hate to say it, but I have always viewed that as a stale food group. (It’s there somewhere at the back of my head.) And the captain frequently announcing how much time I have left to travel and how 'on time' the whole flying contraption can be. It just bugs me no end. It doesn’t even let me enjoy the serenity that 25000 ft of space between me and the ground, should grant me . And the worst part is that a journey of 2000 kms just gets over so soon. Logic denied right there. How is it called a journey? How is it travel? It’s just swift relocation isn’t it?
Which brings me to my love for trains. Late as they are always and there is something about the sound they make as they roll into a platform. There is something about the metallic smell one gets from the coaches and the rails. I don't particularly hate the crowds but I don't really have any love for them either. Ever since I was a kid, my family has ingrained me with the idea of robbers and petty thievery on trains, so I maintain my distance. At first, that is. When the train starts to roll out and one is comfortably settled, then one begins noticing others. I will never deny this, but there is no other place in the world where you come so close to the true sense of human nature as in a train in India. There are generally 8 berths in a compartment. The bottom one will have an entire family on it beginning to open up newspapers or the family lunch. From top, a babu will probably give an insignificant grunt in response to how the bhabijee's aaloo sabji smells. From the other top, someone will probably like the smell and crane his neck to catch a glimpse of it as if that will fill his stomach. There will be others who will just be uncomfortable with the way people behave on trains. Some will just sit on the seats grinning like idiots because they don’t have a confirmed seat or they are just going for two stations. And somewhere in the corner, near a window, I'll spend my time just shifting uncomfortably, quite rolled into a ball near a window and watching these characters making up my country.
That is the least of the joys of traveling in trains. In this country, trains are never on time. People are so used to this idea that they generally get out of their homes 10 -15 minutes late so that they wouldn’t have to wait that long in the station. Trains bustling around a large station make for a grand sight. People are literally classified on the basis of the kind of coaches they enter. The rich ones get into AC 1 or the AC2, the next class goes into AC3. The working class generally prefers the sleeper class and the poor invariably end up in the general class often hanging from coach doors. In the end, one can’t help suppress a snicker just thinking how poor we all are.
I for one, rarely travel in an air conditioned coach. Not because I can’t afford it, and definitely not because I think that traveling in air conditioned coaches is a waste of money (yeah right!), but because I like to have some open air on my face. I don’t mind the stink that comes around once in a while because, the way I see it, stink covers only about 2% of the entire journey. So, I don't mind. Nature is what we are making of it, isn’t it? I like the smell that comes from the rain splashing on railway tracks. I like the smell the jungles throw into the wind as my window goes through a thicket. I like the smell of nothing and everything that just washes my face. Washes me of all worries and lets me live in the moment. Trust me, I love trains.
It is not just another means of travel. It’s a mini city just sitting there. It’s an industry at work that you hardly notice. It is a congregation of people who just sit and talk politics and then switch to family and then to soap operas if their sons and daughters haven’t been treating them right. It is a place when you can come to know someone and keep in touch with him for three years just on the basis of a 36 hr journey. It is something that you don't ever forget. I can't. I remember each and every train journey I've made till date. I remember every problem I went through on each and every journey.
Its a memory that stays. It’s the memory of a place you'll probably never be to in your life again but you wish you did because the moment when you saw that one place passing by from your window, you felt like living there forever.
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