Train journeys-some nostalgic childhood memories

A journey by train has always fascinated me since my childhood. It was something that I always looked forward to. Apart from being a comfortable and cheap option to reach your destination, trains also offered a chance of social bonding-that too with complete strangers.

Today I read an article in a magazine about how a journey via train remains special to the older generation (yeah, I too belong to this category now!) against GenY's fascination for cheap air travel. That made me nostalgic as images of many enjoyable train journeys came rushing back to me.

I have always loved traveling long distances by train, especially the ones that gave me a chance to spend a night or two in the train compartments. I loved the lower bunks (I still do) during the daylight as the scenic and rustic beauty of India always vowed me (after so many years, it still does...). The seemingly endless fields with their lush greenery, distant huts breezing by, the farmers toiling in their fields with bullocks, brick kilns...the list will go on. Each of these charmed me in my childhood days. Though I don't get to travel long distances much now a days, these and some other scenic views still hold an unspoken charm to me, a charm that's hard to describe and should be felt to know what I mean.

Though the window seat was something to die for during the day, I preferred the upper bunk as daylight gave way to dusk. I loved climbing the 3 steps to reach the bunk, made my cozy little space and settled with comics or books (in the initial phases, these were mainly Amar Chitra Kathas, Chacha Chaudhary, Nandan and Champak though they gradually gave way to more serious novels as I grew up) that I would pick up from the railway book stalls. The dinner served by the railways in packed aluminium foils was another thing that I loved very much though my family often preferred to carry cooked food items from home or chucked the rail-food for some delicacies picked from the bigger junctions.

I was so much in love with these journeys via train that I felt sad every time we were about to de-board. In fact, my love for the Indian railways hasn't diminished till date and I still look forward to the same whenever an opportunity comes my way.

Tollygunj Local

A colleague of mine has nicknamed the Kolkata Metro Railway as Tollygunj Local. The reasons are a plenty….all of which make the “pride of Kolkata once upon a time” a mere local train now.

Firstly, with the rush during the office hours, a gap of 7/8 minutes isn’t ideal to run the trains. Unless you board the train from the terminal stations (Tollygunj or Dumdum), you will be squeezed in the bogies. You may even have to leave one or two trains just to gain a foothold and an entry inside the bogies. The situation seems especially problematic for the Tollygunj bound trains from Dumdum in the morning and the vice-versa in the evening. Though I’m lucky to be traveling on the opposite route both the times, I have witnessed the pathetic condition in which people travel. Also, the rush with which the passengers jostle to get in and out….it is just a matter of time before some accidents happen. Now-a-days, even the metro-culture that was once the pride of the city has vanished (people often used to say that Kolkatans have poor manners on the road but once in the paatal, they are an epitome of courtesy). Many stations have their murals removed from the walls and the skeletons of these empty walls stare at your face. The clocks and the gates often refuse to function, causing unnecessary delay. As I use the Central Station, I can vouch for the fact that almost everyday after 7 / 7.15 p.m, the clocks of this station work according to their own whims and fancies…the digits not showing now, dancing then, a blink-&-you-miss show of the digits, and then…..all goes blank. As a regular traveler, I know the timings of the train and so can increase or decrease my pace accordingly to board the trains but I really feel sorry for the first-timers who often miss the train by whiskers due to these good-for-nothing clocks.

So, unless the authorities do something to improve the overall situation and run the trains at quicker frequency (at least during the office hours), it would not be long before our pride becomes a pale shade of its earlier days of glory. As a Kolkatan, I won’t love that for sure!!!