I want to take a train ride somewhere. I desperately want to
take the train.
I love train journeys. I don’t know I have some interesting
memories of them. As a kid we always went everywhere in trains. May brother and
me loved the top berth and jumping in after climbing up. Over the years, I have
seen the trains get dirty and the bathrooms become even dirtier. I don’t know
if I am up to it too much these days, but the call of the train is coming back.
I want to go somewhere in a train.
The stress of work is getting to me right now and I need to
escape and wind down somewhere. I think a train journey gives you the perfect
escape, the gentle rocking of the train, nothing to do but look out of the window
and see the amazing Indian landscape just run by. At speed. I remember the
trees at the distance. Zipping by. Then I would focus on the next tree coming
into view only to see it zip by. Then the bridges over the small roads. Then the
huts. And the people, the villagers in cycles, waiting for the train to go by before
they cross over.
Even thinking about it makes me feel a little happier, a
funny feeling comes over me. A feeling that I might have lost that little
feeling of emptiness. Being happy with emptiness, not being stressed out and
not being bothered with doing nothing. Just relaxing and forgetting work/
school/ friends etc, everything, anything. I want to go a train trip.
I like waiting for my turn to use the wash basin, and then stand
by the door, leaning out and getting your face hit by the wind.
I have some crazy memories. One was when we were going forth
and coming back from a youth music conference at Dehradun, with my friends and
some other delegates. It was Mumbai to Dehradun in the middle of summer. And
playing UNO all day on the way back.
Second one was – Going to Delhi from Agra with Jasmine on
our honey moon. We met the rowdies who didn’t want us to put out the berth and
let us sleep in a booked berth. Just because it was their daily routine. I
think I would have gotten beaten up, if not for a fellow traveler who engaged
them in a long conversation. Thanks, you nameless beautiful friend.
Third – My friend V-inu and I, going to Allahabad from Mumbai
to attend the Ardh Kumbh festival. We were stuck together in an AC first class
coupe for a day and a half with an air freshener that put out a hideously sweet
perfume every 30 minutes.
Fourth – the many many trips I had going to Gujarat and
back, with family. It was always something interesting when we got into the train
in the evening and then have dinner of theplas, aloo sabzi, dahi and chundo.
Fifth – going to Kerala from Mumbai in the old route that
took us from the heart of Maharashtra to Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana), when
in the evening you will see the landscape of large rocks and hard ground. In the
morning you wake up and the train has somehow reversed its orientation and
going in the opposite direction of what it was when you slept. And boom, you
are in Kerala, green and dense and crazy beautiful.
Sixth – my train ride from Rajkot to Mumbai, where I got the
ticket an hour before the train left in Tatkal. My cousin put me on it. As I slept
in the side berth, I was woken up by some of the fellow passengers. My wallet
had slipped from my back pocket and had fallen. I picked it up and thanked
them. That train ride I wouldn’t forget because, I reached home to know that my
dad passed away in the evening. No cell phone those days. Ya. It’s a bit of
tough memory, that ride.
Seventh – I don’t know from where to where but I remember in
a train as a child and my dad outside on the platform and I remember wanting
dad to get back in, before he misses the train. Of course there was no chance
of him missing it but still, that fear was there in me as a child. I must have
been 5 or so.
Eight – train ride as a kid from Nerul to Matheran, in a toy
train. Aww, come on. Who doesn’t remember those rides?
Ninth – recent one from Delhi, we took the train back just
for Jispa to get a feel of the train. I remember sitting in the Rajdhani on the
top side berth with her and explaining the US elections to her. It was a nice
long conversation.
Tenth? Guess that yet to come.
Two / three train journeys I want to do now – To Bharatpur
see bird sanctuary and back, to Delhi and see Red Fort and back, to Ahmedabad and
Manek chowk eating and back. Let’s see.
Bonus feature. Song from Bunty and Bubli. I loved this song
and loved listening to it with Jispa when she was little!
