|
India has long been associated as country of many
cultures, languages, dialects, customs, cuisines,
religions, myths and mysteries. From the tongue twisting languages of
the south to the various dialects of Hindi spoken in the north, from the dosas
and idlis of the south to the chole batura and bhel of north, from the coastal
areas to the plains of central India and the mountains up the north, the pulse
of India and that of Indians can be felt from Kanyakumari to Jammu and from
Kutch to Guhawati during the rail journey through India.
|
|
A vast country with more than a billion people, exploring
India with its caves and beaches, mountains and valleys will consume a lifetime.
So will getting to know Indians with their various rituals, costumes, practices
and beliefs.
But a train journey, as I
have experienced many times, will present a picture of a miniature India before
you. With a capacity to carry more than a thousand passengers from different
parts of the country, one gets to interact with people from all walks of life.
Initially the long train journeys bored me and
I detested the not-so-clean railways. But as fate forced me to be a regular
commuter, I started enjoying my journeys. |
And the best
part of it was getting to know new people. It is great fun interacting with
co-passengers and the usually long and time consuming train journeys becomes
short in their company. The game of cards is the best loved by all passengers
and I cannot remember even a single journey when we have not unpacked the card
set for a game of Donkey or Bluff. I was even presented with a pack of playing
cards by one of my elderly co-passengers seeing our enthusiasm.
Once it so
happened that all the commuters in my coupe were from different states of India
and each of us started singing the praises of our states and asserting that they
were the best. It went on for a long time with each every getting animatedly
involved in the discussion until the person from Rajasthan distributed some
nice, hot and delicious Kachoris. We had to agree that they were really good.
Later we went about discussing Indian cricket and Bollywood.
|
|
Another time
we happened to be traveling with a pack of army men who entertained us with
their jokes and enlightened us about their lives and struggles. Even having kids
as co-passengers leaves us with a bunch of memories and new experiences and
stories when we alight at our destination. A few have even had the chance to
meet their life partners during their train journeys as I learnt from one of my
co-passengers during a journey to the north. |
I have
crossed with many others too during these lively and colourful trips. With some
of them I keep contact, though it breaks over time and with more acquaintances,
and with majority I just cross path for a few hours or day or two, but many of
whom leave traces of those memories for a long time. Reports of co-passengers
cheating and robbing, of injuring and disturbing others are not uncommon and one
has to be vigilant and cautions and these bad experiences of such kind are also
not less. But every journey is a new experience, a new understanding of life and
people and a new story added to ones book of life.
Contributed By:
Gitanjali Maria I'm a undergraduate student from Kerala interested in
writing stories, essays and poems.
maria.gitanjali@gmail.com
|
|
