Last week, I took a train from Chennai to Bangalore and what you are going to read for the rest of this post, is about my love hate affair with Indian Railways. Travelling on Indian Railways is a life in itself. The public sector is so intertwined with our culture and way of life that it goes a step beyond helping you reach places, to teaching you the art of living. If you have read enough philosophy books or have even quickly glanced at the italics under the title of every chapter, you know this important lesson : Never give up! If you have booked a ticket through IRCTC, the online reservation system, you know exactly what I am talking about. The website has been carefully designed to test the patience of Indians and give the fruit of success to the one who survives through it. Hindusim says, "Only if you commit a sin, you take a birth. Else you are given moksha". Well, IndianRailism says " Only if you commit a sin( agents/bribe ), you get a berth. Else you are given ' Website not found / Server Error ' ".
The joy one gets as he breaks out from the cocoon of IRCTC is beyond words. Not the height of joy, but the person becomes so tired and tested along the way, he loses the power of speech. "Never give up" doesn't stop there. It is a very powerful mantra uttered by all senior folks, while at the ticket reservation counter, hoping to get the lower berth. The poor senior folks have climbed enough, that they don't want to take that ladder again. More on the Hinduism-Railism parallelism later. Back to my trip. I sinned, so I travelled. If you ever want to see a place with over 10 thousand people, bustling with activity at 5 am, come to Chennai central. The next challenge - Make your way to the correct platform. It isn't really a challenge to reach the correct platform. But it becomes one if you have just about 10 minutes before the train departs. Challenge taken and job well done. Engine chugs. Train departs. All trains are not the same. Some are fast, some are slow. Some are on time, while some are consistently late. Some pamper you with food and beverages, while some treat you as yet another mere mortal. The one I took is fast, is on time and serves food.
Ever since I was a kid, I used to love being on the trains. I love to watch the passing towns, villages and paddy and I love waving to the kids, mostly ending up getting a similar acknowledgment. If you travel general class, you can sense the real India. Back to Religion-Rail parallelism now. "Men are of several kinds, shapes, sizes and smell. Treat everyone with love and care". Well, not quite. I am not sure how you can love a co-passenger who comes in with 10 over dimensional luggages for a family of 3. How to love a co-passenger who is loud or burps louder. How to love someone who stares at you the entire journey without a smile, as if you are a convict who has just escaped from prison? My current journey did not have any of this. But, have experienced these before.
In a cabin of 8 berths, you have 8 different characters. Some keep munching all along. A real issue comes if you have a lower berth and you want to go to sleep. You can't unless all the others go to bed. And if you are an early morning person and if the person on the middle berth is a travelling salesman sleeping with the disgusting stincking pair of socks, good luck!. You have to adopt, what is taught in Yoga as the C curve posture. Because the middle berth cannot be brought down yet, and you have woken up because you had nothing else to do, you have to stick your head and legs out, while resting the middle portion of your body on the seat. You do this until that person gets up, or if that doesn't seem like a near future event, you just go back to sleep. You will then be frequented by beggars and hawkers to lessen the weight of your wallet.
Remember, most of these journeys are long. So, when you travel with family or friends, you come prepared with some games like cards or snakes 'n' ladders to kill the afternoon boredom. As a kid, I always wanted to step out of the train during stops and scare the hell out of parents by not boarding back till the train starts to move( Actually, I would be twice scared. Just that we tend not to show it! ). As you do all this and finally make it to the destination, you come out a whole new person. You have met new people, seen new things, heard different languages and even tasted different food. All this just over a train journey. This is the love I have with Indian Raliways. It gives you a new experience, every single journey.
As a kid, we used to travel a lot between Mumbai and Chennai. Reaching Chennai, I used to love the auto-rickshaw( Madras autos are brighter yellow and also sound more). I use to love the merry go round ride on the Gemini flyover and I used to love the first cup of filter kaapi on arrival. This time, When I returned from Bangalore, I still enjoyed and loved all of this. It is good that some things in life don't change. As they say, you love it or hate it, you just can't ignore Indian Railways.
-Sayee
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