Another one about the train

What is it about those metal monsters that has made then an inseparable part of the city of Bombay (adamantly, not Mumbai)? Is it the seamless amalgamation of technology of the fifties and the 21^st century? Or is it the colourful souls who use them daily? Or is it the sight of the meandering tracks that seem to stretch forth in front of you for miles on end? Or is it the sight of the same iron lines, ground till they shine by the weight of an overcrowded train above it? Is it how the lines seem to bend and blend so easily into each other when viewed from the grilled windows of the train?

I can’t quite seem to put my finger on it and neither can I explain how I never seem to tire of seeing the same stations on my journey to and from college. What is it about them that makes every train journey worth the pushing, shoving and body odour? What makes it seem magical? There may be those among the regular travellers who would beg to doffer, after all being hardened by years and years of unforgiving train travel does kill off a part of you in a way, but to them the magic of train travel is lost as it has attained a purely functional meaning for them. A little imagination is all that is needed to appreciate the invisible yet tangible sense of camaraderie and unity that engulfs you as the train engulfs you in its crushing yet soft embrace. A world of opposites is what you enter. The second class, populated by those who are too stingy to afford a more comfortable means of travel and the scum of the city, the people who make it tick, the ticket less traveller. The first class is the domain of all those who scorn on the city’s grease and can’t bear to lower themselves to interacting with those of a lower financial standing than themselves. They take comfort in ejecting those whose appearances are not befitting to the sterile green environs of class one. The ladies compartment is the place where vegetables are cut, tales spun and gossip flies through the air in such a thick stream that it can be cut with a knife. Friends meet, new ones are made and the headlines read across a shoulder.

All in the train. Sure the more developed countries may have a more efficient network that specialises in getting you from point A to B, but that’s it for them. Purely functional. The magic has been lost to modernism and efficiency. Nowhere in the world will you find what you find here.

The local train.