The Great Indian Rail Journey
On most days, you could find a ready and willing traveller in me. Among my most unforgettable journeys is one that was among my more recent trips.
Sometime last winter, I was returning from an extremely interesting conference on development issues that was jointly hosted in Jamshedpur by the TATA group and a student organisation called AIESEC. In keeping with its standards, the TATA group had put up the delegates in excellent conditions, pampering us with fabulous food and living conditions. For my return to Pune, my companion had booked tickets for us over a week prior to our journey. We were on the waiting list, however through experience, we should have got confirmed seats by our travel date. As luck would have it, on the day of the journey our tickets had moved up a measly five places. We were stuck with the fate of having to make the forty-two hour journey without confirmed tickets. After seven days of living in the lap of near perfect luxury, the bogey we got into seemed like something straight from the days of the industrial revolution. There was filth all over the floor and paan stains all over the sides. The toilets were smelling and overflowing and our co-passengers had already made themselves as well as their volumes of baggage very comfortable. No amount or reasoning seemed to get them to understand that their luggage could fit in the space under the seats while the seats themselves were meant to accommodate people. Considering that we didn�t have confirmed tickets, our attempts seemed all the more futile. I was sweaty, tired and very, very irritable. The journey hadn�t even begun yet! Rohan, who was attending the conference with me, tried his best to make light of the situation. For a while it worked. The rest of the time, I tried sleep to comfort my nerves. The effort itself should have been given an award! All we had was a small seat that had to be shared by the two of us. Fellow travellers would know this better as the TC�s seat. Small, hard and extremely uncomfortable to sleep on considering that it was designed to accommodate one man for short journeys while sitting and not two grown lads on a long haul who were trying to use it to get some sleep! For a good forty-two hours we persevered and for the most bit failed miserably. However our worst bit was yet to come. Just hours before we were scheduled to get off at Mumbai, the bogey magically filled itself up with close to 50 people, carrying with them assorted parcels, most of which contained vegetables and eatables of all kinds. These were unceremoniously dumped in the toilets (I have since been trying to force myself to consume only meat!).
The jostling and overpowering stench finally grew too great to bear. We got off a mere one hour before Mumbai, fed up and very tired! We bought ourselves seats on a luxury bus for the journey back home. Train journeys of all kinds could wait for a while we�d decided!
On most days, you could find a ready and willing traveller in me. Among my most unforgettable journeys is one that was among my more recent trips.
Sometime last winter, I was returning from an extremely interesting conference on development issues that was jointly hosted in Jamshedpur by the TATA group and a student organisation called AIESEC. In keeping with its standards, the TATA group had put up the delegates in excellent conditions, pampering us with fabulous food and living conditions. For my return to Pune, my companion had booked tickets for us over a week prior to our journey. We were on the waiting list, however through experience, we should have got confirmed seats by our travel date. As luck would have it, on the day of the journey our tickets had moved up a measly five places. We were stuck with the fate of having to make the forty-two hour journey without confirmed tickets. After seven days of living in the lap of near perfect luxury, the bogey we got into seemed like something straight from the days of the industrial revolution. There was filth all over the floor and paan stains all over the sides. The toilets were smelling and overflowing and our co-passengers had already made themselves as well as their volumes of baggage very comfortable. No amount or reasoning seemed to get them to understand that their luggage could fit in the space under the seats while the seats themselves were meant to accommodate people. Considering that we didn�t have confirmed tickets, our attempts seemed all the more futile. I was sweaty, tired and very, very irritable. The journey hadn�t even begun yet! Rohan, who was attending the conference with me, tried his best to make light of the situation. For a while it worked. The rest of the time, I tried sleep to comfort my nerves. The effort itself should have been given an award! All we had was a small seat that had to be shared by the two of us. Fellow travellers would know this better as the TC�s seat. Small, hard and extremely uncomfortable to sleep on considering that it was designed to accommodate one man for short journeys while sitting and not two grown lads on a long haul who were trying to use it to get some sleep! For a good forty-two hours we persevered and for the most bit failed miserably. However our worst bit was yet to come. Just hours before we were scheduled to get off at Mumbai, the bogey magically filled itself up with close to 50 people, carrying with them assorted parcels, most of which contained vegetables and eatables of all kinds. These were unceremoniously dumped in the toilets (I have since been trying to force myself to consume only meat!).
The jostling and overpowering stench finally grew too great to bear. We got off a mere one hour before Mumbai, fed up and very tired! We bought ourselves seats on a luxury bus for the journey back home. Train journeys of all kinds could wait for a while we�d decided!
posted by Pierre at
11:09 AM
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