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Kasak - Jaana Hai Jaana Hai |
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The long dark thread looms on the horizon, advancing steadfastly like a determined giant centipede on an unwavering course as it chugs its way towards the station. I do not know when I started to love trains or what generous hand of fate kept me away from circumstances that might've called for the daily use of suburban trains, a cathartic situation which could have altogether purged the mystique of the trains from my mind.
If I am to be judgmental about train journeys, which I can be at the drop of a hat, I'd say an ideal train journey should not be shorter than 12 hours, the longer the better. In India before the nineties, when globalization was still biding its time at the back-door and airfares had not yet conquered the imposing five digit barrier (in Rupees), Indian Railways was the backbone of the transportation network in the country. It still is, although fledgling professionals who are the progeny of yesterday's middle class now take to the skies with more certitude, thanks to a competitive air travel market.
For the uninitiated, the stupendous size of India's railway network, the biggest in the world - both in terms of traffic volume (people and freight) and the second biggest in terms of infrastructure (pls. correct me if I am wrong), could be understood by some easy number crunching. Five billion people travel by Indian Railways each year which is about 2.5 times the total international air traffic in a year. No wonder I idolize these steel centipedes on rails.
The association with trains from my early life have led them to become synonymous with a wide range of emotions and things ranging from nostalgia and elation to Higginbotham book stalls and Kozhikode Halwa. On an all-India reinvention train tour during the last year of my degree course (yes, the ritual tour for all BTech/BE courses) I confided to one of my classmate-acquaintances that trains gave me a sense of power, an effortless detachment, a translucent objectivity that kept me at a safe distance above sceneries and people even while I was being dragged right through the bloody mess of life. A state of constant motion which allowed me to run on parallel tracks in my mind - being and not being(there) at the same time. We were sitting at the door of one of the coaches(cars) of Kanya Kumari Express, legs dangling in the screeching air and she kept smiling, nodding at me as if I was a child prone to telling tall tales. But I was not.
The pressure-sealed flying carpets rolled in to awkward cylinders otherwise known as airplanes never gave me the same excitement (of trains) with their clinical claustrophobic ambiance. A sealed vault in the sky crammed with strangers stuck too close together for any real comfort failed to evoke any feeling of liberation or motion in my terrestrial animal psyche.
The same with long distance trains in the US, which are paradigms of luxury compared to Indian trains. With their elegant dining cars, bars and glass-domed coaches for sightseeing, these trains cut through the landscape like shiny steel knives, disturbing little in the process. They pass through forlorn stations in forgotten places where ancient looking people (or tourists) get off slowly, at their own ease. Compared to the vibrant train scene in India, the US one is geriatric and intended for use by the tardy tourist. In a country where the freeway lobby had long back relegated rail travel to the sidelines it comes as no surprise that the only quality I perceive in a train journey here is its laid back antiquity, for all other travel purposes four-wheelers win hands down any day. I have not been on Euro-Rail but N who has logged more international rail miles than me says the rail aficionado in me would definitely love the experience, maybe if life consents, sometime in the future.
When it comes to trains I could banter on forever, but I'll cut that 'forever' in to four parts and post the rest three parts in three subsequent posts. This also means this journal will be converted to a train journal for the next couple of weeks. For now, you guys are invited to view this photo of Alaska Railway train from Seward to Anchorage I barely managed to trap in my frame a few weeks ago.(I can no longer the blame the camera, all shortcomings in the photograph below are due to my inexperience and clumsiness.)
(Cont'd...)
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