GREAT INDIAN TRAIN JOURNEY
-Sumantra Chowdhury
In India, a country of billion people we have people of different
backdrop , culture and race.
A great meeting place for all this is the Indian railways……since time immemorial or lets say last 150 years, this larger than life organisation…India’s biggest employer has been able to bind the nation together in its journey across India’s terrain.
Its an amazing experience to witness the transformation of the landscape through the tainted glass of two tier coach. Its also not only the landscape its also about the different language signboards, weather and people which has to be witnessed and felt.
Indian railways may be no match for high speed TGV of Europe of bullet train of Japan but it has its unparallel distinct charm which is uniquely Indian and cannot be observed anywhere else. Small things like the different hawkers sellers who board the train to sell all kind of abstract things from mobile chargers to cheap appetizers…making the journey colourful and refreshing for a traveller.
However the best part of an Indian train journey is the friendship you make with your co-passengers which is very meaningful without any string attached. A companion for the solitary journey whom you probably won’t meet again in your lifetime. The bond that is made in that quick time is priceless.
You may never know how a co-passenger whom you ideally meet on your journey can change life forever…ideally for the better. A lesson can be learnt and new things can be appreciated from new retrospective ways. The cliché attached with our cosmopolitan city life can be shrugged off for few hours and observe the quaint lifestyle in pastoral settings.
