BRAToSPHERE

Tag: Train

  • Train to Kanpur

    “La Camisa Negra..”

    Song playing in the headphone, thinking of the discovery of voice program. The naughty kids wails are still audible piercing through the headphones. Sue you Bose QC. Noise cancelling it says. Can’t silence a small kid.

    Am in the train en route to a major town in UP, to attend my Niece’s wedding. Niece’s wedding? How old are you? Well, this one is a long story involving 10 off springs and a huge lineage, better left for some other time.

    Song changes to “Cup Song..”

    Coming back to the train. I am in the Shatabdi train, so called king of the Indian railway trains (Maybe the prince, if Rajdhani can be called the king) hoping that it would be a pleasant silent journey for 5 long hours. Little did I hope that these five hours would seem like an eternity.

    The journey to the railway station in itself was pleasant. Thank you Delhi Metro. Post my experience, when I had to drop my Mother in law to the station, and I nearly got her to miss the train, I rely on the Delhi metro more than the Delhi Roads. Not my fault. The un-predictable traffic. Even Google Maps goes wrong by a large margin when it comes to Delhi Traffic. Well, maybe I should have estimated the travel time better. Or better still, I should have seen the departure time better. 2:15 and 2:45 look so similar right?

    Song Changes to “Tribal..”

    Anyways, coming back to the train. Post the pleasant trip to the Station I was welcomed to the very familiar filthy and dirty station. I think it is high time we get a crusader against dirtying public areas. The 0.5% cess for Swacch Bharat clearly is not working. (No! 1% would not work either. Intention and action would probably work!).

    I don’t know why we Indians cannot keep basics in place. How much more effort does it take to walk a 50 mts more to spit in the spittoon, or discard the empty chips packet into a dustbin. No!  We just throw wherever we need to!

    Song changes to “bumbaya..”

    Coming back to the train, after the dirty experience at the station, I was looking forward to the train. Shatabdi’s are generally clean. I am at the platform at 3:30 for a train scheduled to depart at 3:50. The train is still not at the platform. I kill time browsing the wheeler books trolley, and buy a couple of magazines. The time now is 3:45PM, The train is still not here. I walk to the snacks stall and pick  a bottle of water and just when I manage to wriggle to manage the last currency note out of my wallet, I hear the train’s whistle. The anger of the vendor not having moved to cashless is subsided by the coarse whistle sound.

    I jump on in the train to my seat (Thankfully this is clean) and get ready my arsenal – iPad, Music, headphones and the magazines I just bought on the table in the front. I was looking forward to the short journey. 4:15 PM. The train is still on the platform. It probably would not be that a short journey. Why God? Why? Why does it always happen to the train I am travelling in? Who is this damn lawyer Murphy?

    Song Changes to “play..”

    The train finally moves at 4:25 PM and I settle in my seat. The train is relatively empty and I wonder why? Indian trains are always crowded. I sit by the window side, deep into my iPad reading and occasionally watching the roads outside. Very soon we would be out of Delhi and the view from the window would be full of mustard fields. What a pleasant sight. I already feel like SRK.

    The train screeches stop at 5PM and gets me of the slumber. Wait! Where did so many people come from? How did the ‘not-so-empty’ suddenly get overfilled with argumentative middle aged men and young women with wailing kids? Ghaziabad. UP sure has to be the most populous state in the country. The kid behind my seats starts wailing. He probably does not like my remark on UP.

    Song changes to “My life..”

    This is my life right now. The far from perfect train journey.

    I take up the volume on VLC to 200%. Creaking sound is better than wail sounds. Damn you Bose QC.

    p.s.: Just in case you are curious, the playlist of the music is Running Music Workout 2016

  • Train journey musings

    I am sure there are a lot many articles written in the train and this one is adding to the list.

    I am right now in a train, on my way to Vizag from mumbai – a full 28 hours in the train. Yehhhh!

    The train has always brought fond memories of my childhood when it was an annual ritual for us to go to my maternal grandparent’s house in Rajasthan. Criss-crossing the length of the country from one corner to another corner, with the fascinating journey itself taking about two complete days.

    Those all familiar sights of the yellow board with black letters announcing the name of the station, trolleys with chips and Coke, Red dressed coolies running towards an arriving train (they always reminded me of Amitabh Bachchan), vendors shouting “Chai.. Chai.. Chai..”, the rail announcement ‘Kripiya dhyaan dijiye.. Gaadi number….” and the crazy commotion like they all have to catch a train. Well, i guess they did!

    I remember this habit of buying newspaper at all major junctions, and being surprised at the fact that all of them carry the same news. So, my mind wondered, that the same movie is being discussed in Bhopal also, as in Hyderabad. This became my favorite hobby, to guess what news of the Raipur newspaper would make it to the Delhi newspaper.

    What I was basically trying to do was segregating the national news from the local news. My young brain did not know this so implicitly at that time.

    Godavari River, clicked from a moving train

    The train journeys made me proud of the diverse heritage of our country. The landscapes, rivers, forests, tunnels, farms, made me realize what a beautiful country we live in.

    Another fond memory of the train journey is meeting new people. I realize I have always liked meeting new people and talking to them about varied things, right from a popular movie to the latest comic on the book shelves. In most of my train journeys, I have always encountered interesting people in the way, making me realize the diversity of the country.

    Talk about train journeys and how can I forget the “wheeler” book trolley. One of the main reasons why i loved a train journey were the books. My book allowance would increase manifold during a train journey and I think this was more to keep me away from any mischief.

    “Chacha chowdhary, tinkle, wisdom,..” and the likes would all comprise my adorable small book shelf on my return. I loved them so much that I used to get the entire collection hard bound, and saved for posterity.

    An interesting thing to do while traveling in trains – remove the ear plugs! There are so many interesting conversations happening all around, eaves dropping on any one of them gives a whole new insight into the thought process of the common man. Well, this is the topic of discussion on presently in my compartment – the Aam Aadmi Party.

    Sadly, after having started working, my train journeys have largely reduced mainly due to the time constraints.

    In spite of this, I try to squeeze in a train journey whenever possible, making the most of it. This reminds me of a small poetry,

    “My heart is warm with the friends I make,
    And better friends I’ll not be knowing,
    Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
    No matter where it’s going.”
    ― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poetry

    Train journeys is perfect time when I am all to myself without the irritating phone beeping all day (thanks to the intermittent network I tend to switch it off), and immersed in books and thoughts for the entire period.

    Back to my book for now.

    I am sure all of you too have fond memories of train journeys during your childhood, so which one do you remember the most?