Wintry Train Trippings

Let's face it, most of our trains are dirty, most of our train travelers are opportunists intent on getting the most out of their berths, everyone treats the bathrooms and vestibules (at the very best as their colony's garbage heap and yet...and yet...there is that mystique to traveling by train.

Especially if it is winter and you don't feel being slow-cooked into Biryani by that most Indian of seasons -- summer.

Then again there is the affordability -- a Sleeper Class railway ticket to Delhi costs less than what a cab to the Airport does, in fact costs so much lesser than you can treat yourself to Beer and Biryani with what you have saved.

And, as I had already mentioned here earlier, train journeys are a nice way to unwind with nothing much but a book (or the prospects of a snack) to occupy your mind :-)

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This time (I was headed for Delhi and then onto Chandigarh, from where I was to ride down for Rider Mania) my train was from Kacheguda and that meant taking an early morning Auto that cost almost half what the train ticket itself did. The incongruity of "urbanization" and "development" is it not?

This time (unlike the trip during September) I had a reservation, and the train was an early morning one (and post the launchitis of Ink Dries), so I started my unwinding with a long snooze that finally broke when the smell of Samosas -- that divine cocktail of a smell, of masala-laced potatoes and fried oil broke through my languor, latched into my olfactory sensors and summoned me into wakefulness.

And I do love Samosas, so it meant one or two did not suffice, but three did. I will also be shameless enough to mention that these were big and pretty hard) Samosas, but then I will also remind you that I had had no breakfast.

This was in January of what was a very very cold (especially by Deccani standards) and the weather was still mild so I enjoyed the fortune of gazing out at and drinking in from an un-ending cinemascope of bright blue skies and verdant greens, passing through what was once the Kakatiya kingdom, fertile expanses irrigated by the plenty of irrigation tanks -- the landscapes I have seen so often on my motorcycle wanderings through the lovely Deccan, on interior roads without name...rice fields sparkling with the liquid green-gold glint of growing rice, like giant bird eyes and the dark massifs of stone too, at least one in every sweep of my eye -- the Kondas I know not the names
of -- as a reminder of the aridity of this land.

Then I did nothing much till Ballarshah which (if as all the readers of my blog know) is where one comes across those famous and sinfully inexpensive Puris. And no, ravenous though I was, I did not order the lunch from the pantry car, such was the memory of familiarity and trust of those Puris.

Ballarshah comes but seems to have been wiped clean of all the hawkers. Absolutely wiped clean, so no Puris for me. But then, I scour the platform (the trains stop here for a fair amount of time, in fact, many get a cleaning / scrubbing here) and luck it out by finding a chap selling warm-to-the-touch meal packets out of a shoulder borne carton and get one. Open sesame -- there's a brick sized lump of rustic small-grained and unpolished rice, like what I have eaten across many a hostel mess in Orissa, along with small packets -- of green peas and potato curry, what looked and smelt like lentil soup (Dal), watery buttermilk and even mango pickle.

All this for 30 INR only, simple, wholesome and honest food that doesn't pretend to be anything else.

Please do remember that I don't claim to be a foodie, before you blame me for having forgotten what I did for dinner. Maybe I did do something unique but honestly, I don't remember. What I do remember is sleeping a bit early and then tossing and turning all night, feeling more and more frozen --I had forgotten to pack any blanket -- with ever kilometre of the train's progress into the cold of the north. And yes, it was really cold, the kind when you want to draw you feet into your legs and your fingers into your hands, the kind when you try that part foetus like, part dog like curl to conserve body warmth.

But then whoever designed the berths of the Indian Railways did not account for somebody as big as me, so the curling wasn't that effective either. Yes, my self-inflicted travails are legion but what matters is that somehow I survive them all, so the long cold night passed and I lived.

To wake (late) and find the train slowly making its way through heavy fog all the way into Delhi with splashes of sunlight here and there, as infrequent as butterfly sightings in December. Catnapping, I spent most of the time in a sleepy reading, of the meanings revealed in the mingling of my frosty breath with the vapours rising out of hot tea.

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I had arrived at Hazrat Nizamuddin (and since I was prepared for the deluge of taxi-drivers and hotel touts) did not have much issues getting out of it. Or rather, since I was looking for a place to "refresh" myself (or to use the motorcycle tourer / outdoors types equivalent -- go behind the bushes) and move on to New Delhi Railway Station to catch the Una Jan Shatabdi, probably most of the touts did not find me a potential prospect.

I managed to "refresh" myself at much effort (and with a leap of faith that involved leaving my luggage unguarded right outside the loo) breakfasted on some delicious roadside Chana Kulchas and then got into a bus headed for New Delhi Railway station with the vague idea of buying woolens somewhere near it, if time permitted.

Did I not tell in an earlier blogpost that I have developed an eye for birds, that I see them everywhere, even in very humdrum urban settings? What I forgot to say is that every such sighting, even of very "common" birds leaves me with a soul-soaring of joy, something that is simply indescribable in prosaic terms. So here I was groggy after a night lacking in warm sleep -- the ideal thing for me was to ask a co-passenger (there were quite a few good looking ones wearing bright sweaters and scarves and what nots) where I should go (near NDLS) to buy some decent woolens. Instead I was looking all around and marveling at the Black Kites of New Delhi, the sheer multitudes of them, as common as me and literally everywhere and flying in unhurried nonchalance all over early morning barricaded-for-Republic-Day New Delhi.

In fact, I almost pulled out my camera (it was not in a backpack, but a suitcase rather) and almost got down from the bus and almost...but better sense prevailed and I reached New Delhi Railway Station.

And oh yes, I did not find any good woolens but I found some "okay" Chole Batore to tuck into. And then I was onto another platform, ready for another train journey. And then, there was the "foodie" discovery of the day -- on P.F. No. 10 -- a packet marked " Indian Railways Puri Sabzi, Rs. 10" surprisingly mine for 10 INR only. The contents weren't hot air either, 6 odd small (but thick) reddish, coarse-grained (hence immensely flavoursome) Puris, Potato curry and (just a dash of) pickle too!

Discovery isn't exactly the right word, I had a feeling of deja vu, have I found (and gorged on) such packets before?

Then I was again in a train bound for the greenness of Punjab and the bonhomie and paranthas (and butter) of the Panjab, in the Una Jan Shatabdi.

The Jan Shatabdi is "not" a bad way to go to Chandigarh, its in fact convenient, clean and middling "fast", but its also a "populist" train which means it is cheap and totally a "seater"( I could of course be wrong about the AC section) with barely more than enough leg room with three seats on either side of the aisle, seats that are again not meant for 6 feet types like me. Especially if the passenger besides happens to be equally big as me and intent on sitting "chaati phaad ke". But I was sure that I will somehow survive it all and reach Chandigarh and be in a position (even if fairly late) write this up :-)

The mild discomfort of being a bit closely packed apart it was yet another cinemascope of green fields and blue skies all around (rather when viewd from one side of the train -- the other had a weak, benign sun flaring into my eye and then fading into a blood red sunset while the train passed through what our history tells us were once battlefields red with blood -- Kurukshetra and Panipat and the quaintly evocative ones like Diwana and Aman. And to boot, the quaintness got heightened even further because my co-passenger (for a bit of the journey) all of nineteen years and a very charming kid with immaculate manners was reading Jane Eyre. Ha, reading and that too Jane Eyre!

Ambala arrived and I ate some more Kulchas, but I will not mention the rest, I am sure I have written about it somewhere on this blog itself recounting my earlier trip to Chandigarh by this very train...

But I must make mention of the Black Kites, again in large multitudes silhouetted against the flaring skies, which meant I again had that urge, of pulling out the camera and getting off the train, etc, etc.

Of course I didn't; and reached Chandigarh, surviving the cold getting colder with the evening. To be received at the station by K revving his Bullet and asking me to hop onto it with suitcase and all. He had even considerately brought along a helmet for me.

All that K and I did in Chandigarh (starting then on) deserves a dedicated blogpost and maybe I get around to missing Chandigarh a lot and will do it soon too.