It was a rainy morning in the early 2000s, when Harry Potter had become a big part of the Indian reading diet. My family and I had to leave our house to catch the train for our vacation to Gujarat, Rajkot, at my uncle’s house. By 10 am, I did not know what to carry to read on the train. I had not gone to the library the day earlier, and it was pouring too much. How could I take this train journey without a read in my hand? Those were the days we did not own as many books as I do today, and I relied heavily on the library of the Goregaon Sports Club, a dingy space in the basement that nevertheless served up enough to fulfill my reading appetite.
On that rainy morning, I asked my dear childhood friend Naomi D’souza to make the trip with me to the club. I must have used the pretext of returning a book or incurring late fees (the brown middle-class parent is easily convinced if you mention expenses). The rule was that since I needed her to go with me, I would pay the auto-rickshaw fare both ways. 16 rupees in total. An expensive deal for a 12 year-old. But I did not mind it.
Off we went with our raincoats and umbrellas, reaching the dingy library, quickly grabbing the copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and rushing back – book tucked safely under that raincoat – in a record time of 25 minutes. I had it! The journey could now commence.
At home, my mother was busy preparing the food basket that we would carry – oranges, thepla, dry potato subzi, curd, and ingredients to make sandwiches. Oh I could just imagine how my train journey would go. I would climb onto the upper berth seat, plop my book open and get lost in the pages. My dad and mom would pass me chips, water, extra pair of socks to beat the cold – anything I needed as I read on about the conversation at The Riddle House, then about the Firebolt in Diagon Alley, about Harry and Sirius. My brother would just be in his own world, perhaps reading a comic or two, but mostly sleeping.
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Travel and journeying has been excessively romanticised in our culture, but not enough is said about the continued, timeless beauty of traveling in trains. The machine, which heralded and sped up the progress of our industrial society, with its rhythmic rubber slapping and tire grating, is what I call, the optimal speed of travel, the perfect ode to the idiom, enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
I don’t remember my first trip on the train, though I am continuously reminded of it. We were going to Jammu, my parents, my elder brother and my even elder cousin sister. My mother still tells me stories about how I cried so much, so loudly that passengers in the neighbouring berths threatened to call the police on me.
There was another time in the early years of my train journey – in 2001.
We, my mother and I, were travelling to Gujarat, perhaps for the first time away from my father, for a wedding of my mother’s cousin. I would eventually get caught in the big grand earthquake of that year, associating that soothing rhythm with earthquake tremors.
But except the faint memories of these two journeys, every train journey has been like a picnic on wheels, a happy, social time that gave me a lot of core memories, introducing me to Indians from parts of India I would never otherwise meet, and besieged my soul with the spirits of the wanderers.
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Trains have what airports don’t – a uniqueness, a slowness that is deliberate. Every airport feels the same, the synthetic paint of capitalist glory, for faster travel. The same lounge food, the same flight meals, a very very similar crowd, and an inherent individualism to it.
And even though airports are meant to be faster, they are far more tiring than trains. They are rushed, and the more you move, the more blurred your perception of time gets. Trains on the other hand allow you everything – reflective leisure, alone time, chunks of slowed reality that can be even more refreshing in our fast paced lives. You pass through fields, forests, villages, and geographies of all kinds in a train – a rootedness that, flights, by design, are meant to lack.
I don’t write from a place of nostalgia, but from a place of behavioural understanding (albeit of only the self) of how enriching community travel like trains, together with its controlled pace, can be for the mind and soul.
What greater testimony to the train do we need, than the fact that the most expensive flight seats aim to create a similar environment for you? Beds and stands, privacy, and quiet leisure, and the wonder of the journey, which can often surpass the relief of the destination.