When the Journey was as important as the Destination
Its been a while since I wrote, but some recent train journeys made me so nostalgic that I felt like i had to pen them down in this space. This post is more like a run down the memory lane, and a mix of collected memories from the era of train journeys.
Have you ever experienced the rare luxury of doing absolutely nothing while travelling?
No phone buzzing. No messages to reply to. No Netflix to watch. No endless scrolling. Just you, a train window, a long stretch of countryside, and hours and hours of time. That would be pure Nirvana.
All of this was a part of life, when people used to travel by trains. People used to look forward to these journeys with great anticipation. Tickets were booked three or four months in advance, often by standing in long queues at railway stations. The entire journey was planned around the availability of those precious tickets.
For the journey itself, along with the passengers, came a bag of food, suraahi or water cans, bedding, clothes, snacks, books and almost a mini household. 😀
These days, we get so bored if we are stuck up at one place with the same set of people. At that time, multiple families, who didn’t even know each other, ended up spending so much time together. In fact, i remember that we used to read the charts stuck outside the coach, to see who would be our co-passengers for the journey, and visualize them even before meeting them. 😀
Today, the feeling of not doing anything sounds so alien. We live in this “No-Time” age—where nobody has the patience, nor the interest. Who would want to travel for 2-3 days by train, when one can easily reach places in a matter of a few hours, right?
I guess that’s where we are missing out on the pure joy and bliss of travel, where a journey was considered equally important as the destination.
When you go on long journeys by train, you could talk to complete strangers, share your food, exchange stories, play cards, sing songs, sleep, stare out of the window—and then, when the journey ended, you would probably never see those people again.
Perhaps, that was exactly why people opened up.
You could tell a complete stranger your deepest secrets because there was very little chance that you would bump into them at your local supermarket or somewhere, later 😀
When trains were our entertainment
Imagine a time when there were no mobile phones. No Netflix. No YouTube. No Instagram.
No Bluetooth earphones that were glued to our ears like a permanent fixture.
And yet, somehow, we survived.
We looked out of the windows.
We watched the landscape change, farmers working in their fields, cattle grazing, children walking to school, little villages appearing and disappearing, factories, bridges, rivers and endless stretches of countryside.
Every station was an event.
The train would stop and people would immediately get down to buy whatever was famous in that particular place. Food, snacks, tea, water—you name it. Agra was famous for Angoori Pethas, Mathura for the Pedas, Vijayawada for Aam Papad, Nagpur for Oranges, and the list goes on. 😊
With no real-time information on the running status of the train, people would refer to the printed railway timetable to see whether the train was actually on time. Well, we did miss our train once because of that timetable, as the train timings had changed but our printed timetable had not. 😀
The Grand Trunk Express adventure
One train journey from my childhood remains particularly vivid.
I was 13 and my brother was 6. My parents had planned a two-week holy trip to Badrinath and Kedarnath, but apparently, my brother and I were not part of that plan.
Anyways, we preferred going to Chennai and staying with our uncle and aunt, rather than going on a spiritual trip.
So, my parents decided to send us to Chennai.
They put us on the Grand Trunk Express in Delhi, which took roughly 36 hours to reach Chennai. Yeah, 2 nights and 1 day of train journey.
Today, people get irritated if their flight is delayed by 45 minutes. Back then, we were happily signing up for a day and a half of railway adventure.
My Amma had lovingly prepared all our favourite food for the journey, and Appa gave us some money to buy snacks along the way.
They came to the station to see us off and, before leaving, made sure that virtually the entire coach knew that two children were travelling alone, and were to be monitored. 😀
So, what did we do? We took out a notebook and started making notes of every station the train stopped at.
And the Grand Trunk Express seemed to stop at every single one on the way, as if to mark attendance.
We had our meals on time and even walked all the way to the pantry car to buy ice cream.
The family travelling with us was amazed at how independent we were.
My brother, thankfully, was an extremely docile child. He would listen to almost anything I said (at least at that age 😀 ). It was very convenient for me because, at 13, I had already appointed myself as his manager, guardian, foster mom, and travel coordinator. 😀
But, that experience did instil a lot of confidence in both of us, for which we are thankful to our parents.
When we finally reached Chennai, my uncle and aunt were waiting at the station.
Our suitcase had no wheels.
My uncle picked it up and carried it all the way outside, before joking,
“Did your mother fill this suitcase with stones?” 😀
The Varanasi adventures
Then, there were our numerous journeys to Varanasi, where my grandmother lived.
Every trip was an adventure.
My father lost his purse on one journey.
On another, our train was cancelled and we ended up travelling in unreserved compartments, from Allahabad.
Sometimes, our tickets would remain waitlisted, but we travelled anyway.
On one unmemorable occasion, we sat near the door of a 2nd AC coach because apparently that was the best solution available to us, with a waitlisted ticket.
Looking back, every trip to Varanasi felt like we had to cross some kind of obstacle course before we could reach the city.
But somehow, that was a way of life and part of the adventure.
The joy of observing strangers
One of the most entertaining things about train journeys is simply watching people.
You don’t have to talk to them. You don’t have to know them. You can just observe.
On one journey from Bangalore to Thrissur, my husband and I were doing exactly that when a lady sitting nearby noticed that we were speaking in Hindi.
She was fluent in Hindi and immediately started talking to us.
Within two hours of our journey together, we knew about her school days, childhood, cooking, students, family and probably several chapters of her life that were never intended for public consumption.
Meanwhile, her son was conducting his own culinary expedition.
Lays chips… Kurkure… Parathas… Omelette.
More Kurkure.
I know I shouldn’t comment on someone else’s diet, but I couldn’t help wondering, especially as it was 10 p.m.
Then came morning.
Her alarm started screaming:
“Wake up! It’s a beautiful day!”
It certainly was.
For everyone except the person who owned the alarm.
She didn’t move. Not a millimetre.
The alarm continued its inspirational speech. Everyone in the compartment woke up.
Except her.
She continued sleeping peacefully and snoring as though she was immune to her alarm, and it was her personal responsibility to wake everyone up.
I wondered why people set alarms when they have absolutely no intention of waking up, snoozing it or even acknowledging its existence.
I was seriously considering nudging and shoving her.
Fortunately, our station arrived before I could commit a railway crime.
Then came the phones
Times have changed.
Today, people don’t want to spend that much time on trains.
And when they do, many of us immediately reach out for our phones.
We watch something.
Scroll through something.
Reply to something.
Check something.
Then check the same thing again five minutes later.
The train may be moving through breathtaking scenery, but we are busy staring at a 6-inch screen.
We have never been more connected, I mean digitally.
And perhaps, ironically, never been so disconnected from the people sitting right next to us, and the scenery outside.
And then, something unexpected happened
Recently, I met a lady sitting beside me on the Shatabdi train from Bangalore to Chennai.
She had recently lost her husband.
During the journey, she started talking to me.
And then she opened up completely about her husband, in-laws, family, kids, her life.
I basically became her free therapist.
I nodded, shook my head, tried to look concerned, and made sympathetic noises.
She kept talking, and I had to listen. I so badly wanted to open my book and read, but that felt so rude.
When we finally reached our destination, she told me something that stayed with me.
She said she had been able to tell me everything because she knew I wouldn’t judge her.
And, more importantly, she knew she would probably never meet me again.
That really made me think.
Perhaps this is what train journeys have always offered us.
Not just a way to get from one place to another, but a temporary little world where strangers became companions for a few hours.
There is something strangely comforting about talking to someone who has no history with you, no expectations of you and no reason to judge you.
Sometimes people don’t need solutions.
They don’t need advice.
They just need a sounding board.
A listening ear.
A shoulder to metaphorically cry on.
And perhaps that is one thing that even the smartest AI in the world cannot completely replace.
Because sometimes, you don’t need an answer.
You just need another human being sitting beside you, saying,
“Hmm…”
and nodding at precisely the right moment.
So, the next time you want to unwind, take a break from the digital world and travel by train.
Look out of the window.
Watch the countryside go by.
Talk to a stranger.
Share some food.
Listen to someone’s life story.
And, if you’re really lucky, you may even meet an over-enthusiastic passenger who has been waiting specifically for you to become their therapist for the next few hours. 😀
Read more about my train journeys in these posts:
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