Trainspotting - contd.

Well written, Prashant - the lines truly reflect and retain the childhood memories that must have once fascinated you!

As truly mentioned, travelling on these chugging long distance trains makes us realize the long journey ahead instead of the destination – in earlier times, when zipping across airports was neither the flavor nor the capability, we would accept the fact that the next 48 hours or even more, would be spent in a berth upon a train – and if there were siblings, the ensuing quarrel as to who would occupy which one!

Having had the experience of travelling in trains both here in India and abroad, I must admit that each is unique and enjoyable in its own way. Now that I type whatever comes to mind related to trains, thanks to this one article by Prashant, I find the floodgates of my memories open and deluge me with a plethora of images!

My first train journey was from Howrah (Kolkata) to Shillong over 2 days and that too, in a first class compartment. Way back in the late 80s, it was a treat equivalent to travelling in business class today. And the images – some of them are still indelible as seen in the eyes of a 5 year old who was delighted to be seated next to the window to marvel at never ending stretches of green fields, the immensity of the Farakka barrage over the Damodar and guess what, even small patches of snow!

This was followed by many others - good, bad and ugly, that perhaps helped in forming the mindset of this traveler (or as Prashant calls, a wanderlust :-).This included travelling on packed sleeper classes bang in the middle of winter and freezing in hellish chill despite the multitude of humanity that had flocked upon one compartment – with people even loading the space above ceiling fans with luggage!

I can never forget the train journey to Agra where the train took a bend and behold, I saw the pristine mausoleum for the first time - a teardrop on the cheek of eternity. Years later, when I was travelling in Paris, the same excitement ran up inside me when I was anticipating the Eiffel Tower from inside a train.

Journeying in Europe was another experience altogether, with lightweight yet delectable furnishing and cosy heating, much appreciated especially if you are travelling in winter. I remember travelling to this small country called Liechtenstein, nestled between Austria and Switzerland. Nishant and I caught a night train from Vienna, which my ever cautious friend reminding me time and again that our destination – a sleepy town called Vaduz would be reached by 5 in the morning. We dozed off after a tired day (where we had ran, rushed and covered the twin capitals of the erstwhile Austro- Hungarian empire, viz. Budapest and Vienna). I woke up the next day and to my dismay found my watch staring back a time of 6 am. Finding Nishant dreamily staring outside the glass windows, I reminded him of the time, when his reverie broke and we realized we were far inside Switzerland. So we get down the next station and catch a train in the opposite direction but reach Vaduz when its too dark outside – so we continue travelling to Austria until the daylight pleases us enough that we get down and finally travel back to Vaduz! And what joy to come back to the warm confines of the train after getting drenched in sleet in the town :)

No dearth of stories here, with our experience including being caught by Spanish policemen in mufti on the France – Spain border who took us to the police station because of their ignorance of the latest EU documents that we possessed, and of course, which according to them were not in order! Hours of debating in broken French followed by (thanks God) a call to EU headquarters at Berlin helped us reach Barcelona that day, after the police HQs at both Barcelona and Madrid refused to acknowledge our documents – no wonder the coutry’s sinking!!! What more, our train from Amsterdam was stopped over an hour at the German border after the police had discovered some wayward Rastafarian-to-be with kilos of hashish! Not to mention the time when our train to Lindau in Germany was stopped on the way with announcements in German that passengers are requested to catch the bus to complete the journey – of course, we were chattering away in Hindi and chewing cookies while joking that (really!) the announcements might be telling us to get off the train!

Talking of stories and coming back to India, I would suggest everyone to read “The night train at Deoli” by Ruskin Bond, unarguably one of his best stories. It so succinctly describes the quintessential small town Indian railway station where like life, the train stops momentarily at an unknown stop, but for what reason no one knows. In the author’s words, “Why it stopped at Deoli, I don’t know. Nothing ever happened. Nobody got off the train and nobody got in…and then the bell would sound, the guard would blow his whistle, and presently Deoli would be left behind and forgotten” Until just like life, the author realizes the profundity of every activity in life no matter how miniscule...Enough rambling for a day, until Meghdoot inspires me to write again :)