35 hours to be precise. Since the time I looked away from my full-time job, I stopped taking flights too. I had plenty of time and a lot less money than before; so the trains suited just fine: sleeper class for winters and 3AC for summers. And then you can brag about how cool it is to travel by train, what a pleasing experience it is, and how environment friendly you get, blah, blah and blah – a few better ways to say that you don’t have much money!
All that apart, train journeys do have a romance. A train compartment is one place where people go easy with strangers, talk to everyone, share food, tell stories and build friendship. And then...
more... there are changing views of landscape outside, often of arid plains of India that morph into endless lush green paddy fields, shrubbery, rolling landscapes and occasionally forests. It’s a pleasure to watch the landscape we leave behind as the train progresses swiftly on its tracks, and wave at children in villages who run out of their dwellings and scream at the speeding train as they wipe their noses.
Trains are good. In fact, excellent if you know how to forget all the garbage that accumulates through the journey.
I started on a long journey from Bangalore to Delhi on an uneventful republic day eve. President of India had just concluded her customary, predictable speech, saying that the economic reforms have not reached all the classes of society. People in the train looked bored, and awaited the ticket collector to come and perform his ritual, so they can shut themselves off for the night.
And when the ticket collector did arrive, the mood in the train livened up a bit. He was followed by a line of wait-listed passengers who were pleading their case for a berth. As the collector moved from coach to coach checking tickets, they followed him in a line along the narrow passage, almost like ants in search of sugar. Everyone had a reason to plead for a berth – one had an elderly with him, another had a heart patient, and yet another was ill. Very soon, everyone seemed to have developed some ailments and became rightful claimants for a berth. The ticket collector who seemed to go through this every day took it all cheerfully, as he continued his work ignoring his growing tail. When the pestering became a little unbearable, he laughed at them and remarked, that it is time he took all the sick people to hospital than leave them in the train. I suspect he gets to say that to people everyday.
As the Ticket Collector completed his job, people started unfolding the middle tier, pulled out their bed-spreads and blankets and quickly went to sleep. Most of the train went silent within a few minutes, apart from a few noises here and there – of people gently murmuring in darkness, picking up linen and then shutting their suitcases, or walking to the end of the coach to take their last bio-break for the day. An infant cried in some far corner and the mother made a desperate attempt to calm her down. Two girls near my cube sat up late into night and did what girls are supposed to do – talk trivia and giggle with excitement every now and then. They let everyone around them into their conversation as they talked loudly about fitness, shaping up, boys, and finally some not-so-interesting topics about their work. It continued until a neighbour, unable to sleep, hushed them up and forced them to go silent. With my permanent inability to fall asleep in a moving coach, I stayed up reading George Orwell late into night.
I was awakened by the shouts of ‘chai chai’ early next morning. Vendors from railway catering were up early and had begun their work. It was just about 6am and most of the compartment was in comfortable slumber. There wasn’t a soul up and active enough to buy tea, but the chai vendors continued walking noisily along the corridors, scouting for customers. It seemed like a clever strategy – keep shouting until you disturb everyone from their sleep, wake them up and create customers! And it seemed to work pretty well – the sleepy occupants of the train complied exactly with the plan.
Later in the day, I took some time off from George Orwell to steal a conversation with my neighbours. The man who took the berth below mine – a particularly talkative and friendly person – worked as a shoe salesman and travelled all over the country on work. He seemed to be a hard worker. He had left home from Allahabad more than a month ago, went to Delhi, and then to Vizag, Secundarabad, Mangalore and then Bangalore before returning to Delhi. He was then about to make a week long trip home to be with his family before heading out again. From his clothes, it did not look like he earned much, and very soon he said that himself. The outspoken man talked at length about his family, the work he does, his travels and all things that his life is.
“I don’t have many problems in life,” he said, “but just that there is always a shortage of money.”
He attributed his hard work to lack of money, and said that all in a nonchalant and regret free tone. He seemed to be contented in life and never seemed to have any complaints to make about having to work hard.
Other passengers nearby consisted of the talkative girls, and a large group of noisy but friendly government employees who were on their way to Delhi, to take an examination that would make them eligible for a promotion.
The day progressed uneventfully as the train made its way north via Andhra, Nagpur, and Bhopal later in the night. The earth remained flat most of the time, with little variation in the scenery outside the window. Towns and villages appeared frequently as we passed through dry and flat lands of Andhra that gave way to shrub jungles near Nagpur. “We go through some very scenic forested landscape in MP,” said the shoe salesman, “but it will be dark and you won’t be able to see much”.
The temperatures started dipping as we moved northwards. It felt too cold to sleep sometime after mid-night, forcing me to pile all available warm clothing over me. Next morning, as we arrived closer to Delhi, people who were comfortably sleeping the previous morning at this hour were already up and shivering, unable to sleep in the cold and waiting for some tea to arrive. But the tea vendors themselves were no less affected by cold – they slept late and arrived with their big flasks only after seven, much to the discomfort of impatiently waiting passengers.
Indian Railways seems to have come a long way when it comes to efficiency. It is a great leap when compared to a decade ago when most trains regularly ran late by many hours and left the passengers stranded and complaining. Our train had left Bangalore exactly on time at 2220 hours two days ago. Scheduled to arrive in Delhi at 0920, I looked up my watch when the wheels completed their last revolution at Delhi’s Nizamuddin station. It was hard to suppress a surprise to see it read 0920:10. Impressive indeed – the times of Laloo have definitely brought some unpredictable changes in the behemoth that connects and integrates India.
