I love train rides. May be for this reason or may be theres no reason, but I just like trains. I always make sure to travel in trains whenever I visit India. The trains in the US are slow and boring, though mostly clean. The ‘This too shall pass’ moment on liking train rides happened with my last trip to India.
Flashback …
For the long love of trains, I still managed to accommodate about 4 inter-city train rides during my short winter vacation of 18 days in India. Though the overall visit is termed as a ‘leisure trip/vacation’, yet the deeds of visiting cities for visa , in-laws, home town, pilgrimages, mandatory ceremonies make it more like a business trip running on a tight and unforgiving schedule. This also happened to be my one year olds first international trip. All rosy things rolled in my head about the train rides … family chatter, fast food, jolts n bolts, awestruck son peeping through the window pane, me – listening to songs watching landscapes passing by … and am sure I imagined more than I could remember now.
First ride was an overnight journey from the port of entry to the in-laws. We had the 2-tier AC coupe booked. My in laws were there too to travel with us. The images of food, laughter, family chatter were all still flying high in my mind. Right before the day of embarking the train, father-in-law decided that he’s leaving ahead of us in a cab with our luggage. Did I forget to mention that we had about 300 pounds of luggage spread of 7 spinners. Given my son is part of the trip, theres additional luggage as well with his needs. Theres no way we could fit so much luggage in our coupe and we should rather have booked a freight ticket than a passenger ticket. To make sure we have a comfortable overnight journey, my father-in-law just decided to take the hit of traveling ahead with our goods by car. The rest of us finally board the train, only to realize that we are the first coupe right next to the door/toilet. I honestly opine there shouldn’t be any door at all to the main cabin given the amount of abuse the door had, with people constantly going in & out even all through the midnight. Every-time the door squeaked, my son squeaked in his sleep.Then my wife sibilates about the disturbance.Then I wake up to see who’s passing by.Then my mother-in-law wakes up to verbally confirm if we all were doing okay. And this happened every 10 mins all through the night. The laughter, banter, chatter were all the dreams, while the reality was the urge to get out at the destination at the earliest.
Second ride was from my in-laws to my home town. This is a lone journey as I went earlier, while my wife-kid came after a couple of days.I got the ticket on the newly launched double-decked superfast express. Mind you, that every train in India is labeled super-fast though its average max speed is 35kmph. The train was late by 30 mins to arrive , late to depart by an other 10. The train was in-fact new and neat and scarcely occupied given its day-time schedule. The stranger lady who actually had her ticket next to me in the aisle seat took my window seat and also asked me to go look for another seat somewhere, preferring me not to sit next to her. It genuinely took more than a moment to understand what she was asking for.And the man who came to assist-her-board-the-train was standing in the aisle with a stare-ready-to-punch, had I denied. As I understand how things work locally, I graciously admitted to her preference and found an other window seat in the same car. But the constant anxiousness of somebody else passing by to claim the seat left me restless. And because of this I couldn’t listen to my long lost spotify list in peace. Added to that , my 30 inch spinner was rolling back and forth back at the entrance of the car, as I left it in the only space/place where it could fit. The overhead bins are small for it. Every-time my spinner rolled, somebody or the other had their eyes-gaping at me. Is he looking at me to caution about my luggage? Or is he looking to claim the window seat? Or is he just looking at me wondering why I’m clinging to my backpack,not putting it in the overhead bin? Or does he already know that I’m carrying all my docs/passports in my backpack, ready to steal? Oh God ! No ! I cant me more apprehensive. Despite the departing delays, the train arrived at the destination city on time but only to wait in the outer line for 40 mins to have a free platform to disembark. So I spent the final 40 mins standing at the door with my spinner, anticipating to reach the platform any moment now.
Third ride was from my home-town to the pilgrimage, an over-night journey. This has been a disaster even before the ride started. We initially didn’t have any tickets available to board the train. As the trip schedule was locked-in given our other commitments, we had no flexibility to travel on a different date. So we had to book the tickets in the premium-tatkal with 4x the fare. We later wondered we could have just flown for the same price. Adding to that – we got our seats allotted at various random places through-out the car, all upper berths while we wanted at-least 3 lower berths for my mom, dad and wife to co-sleep with my son. Though no body said anything out loud for the sake of courtesy, I could still feel their wrath for forcing them into such chaos. My mom and wife had to go out requesting people to swap seats for lower berths at 11pm in the night as we boarded the train. I couldn’t have found any place to hide my face hadn’t they got any swaps. We were yet seated at various places with our luggage scattered through out the car. After we got down, my dad counted the luggage at-least a dozen times to make sure that we got everything we had . It was a guilt-trip than a joyful-trip to me.Had it not been my appeal for trains, we would have simply flown saving time, money, energy and peace of mind.
Fourth ride was a trip back to home-town from pilgrimage. Hail the ticket-booking tech of indian railways.Irrespective of all the preferences I chose while booking to have lower berth, all seats together, in a coupe, towards the middle of the car, the actual seating still came out honoring none of the preferences. We again had the next to door/toilet seat and worse was that we got the side 2-seaters instead of a 4 seater cabin. And all 4 of us were split into two pairs. It’s a daytime ride and my son was fully awake, not pertaining to any seat. He just chose to keep walking through the aisle poking things. The passing by landscapes and the window views didn’t amuse him, opposed to what I thought they would. I never tried any fast food for hygiene and health sake. Read no novel, as I had to keep pulling something out the luggage constantly that my son wanted. Didn’t do any talking with family as they were tired of the trip trying to sleep in broad day light. The AC coach was a running at a temp of 78F and we were sweating with no overhead fan either. I asked the car-attendant to turn the cooling on and he denied saying there were many senior citizens in the coach that day who might later come and nag him about not being able to withstand a milder temperature. And he didn’t want to mess with boomers. My family didn’t bother taking a namesake-pic of our train ride together. The heat in the AC coach took priority over fretting about roaches crawling around. The looks from my mom and wife spoke a zillion words questioning why I chose the train over a flight.
And thats when its snapped to me that I’m DONE loving the train. And I had to move on. And I DID.
Reading me ?.. 