Tracking tales: A strange love story

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain, Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And here is the green for stringing the daisies!

Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever!

This is R.L Stevenson’s famous ‘From a railway carriage.’ I learnt this in Class 1 or 2, but I can still rattle off the first half of the poem effortlessly. Funnily, in the same way I learnt it back then.

The luxury of time

As a child, travelling by train was a norm. Especially, to the place where I had to go to spend my summer vacations or winter vacations, train was the only option. Infact, even now train is the best option to that place, they have an airport with a few flights, and people usually go there for picnics.

As we grow older we start to worry about things like time because it is running out all the time. To catch-up with it we give up the joy, the leisure or the comfort that a vacation is supposed to give us. So we fly, feeling all important and sophisticated, walking around busy airports and saving travel time.

Realisation dawns in the evening

I never realised how much I miss train travel till I took on this really long journey. Every moment reminded me of the anxious moments I had before every vacation. Are the tickets confirmed? Will we get good seats?Where are we placed on the waitlist? Most of the times we did manage to get through all these, but once in a while we did come back from the station, disappointed, with all our luggage intact.

Starting over

This train journey was different. It was my first without any family, I was more-or-less alone, it was after a really long time and it was a route not frequented by me as child. I could just call it my first train journey ever, but that would be wrong.

But that’s the superficial different. The big difference was doing things I was so far ‘not allowed’ to do during a train journey. I left my berth more than a dozen times. I’d come back to check on my luggage, with  hope that the senior citizens with the prized lower berth had fallen asleep, so that I could unlatch my middle berth and sleep myself.

Checking out stations

I stepped out when the train stopped at some station for really long. This was a privilege usually reserved for the grown-ups. Even as I stood at the platform, I kept checking if the train was moving. Some part of me was still scared of being stranded at the platform. Inspite of all my wishful thinking, I knew that Shahrukh Khan was not going to give me his hand and pull me onto the moving train. I’d end up running and catching it myself.

So at the very first sound of the siren, I jumped and quickly got into the train. Only to realise that it was for another train. But that’s okay. Atleast I got off the train and walked around a random station.

Bad girls stand at the entrance. Being bad is great! 

Next I spent a major part of my journey standing near the entrance. The best part, the gates were open. So I literally lived every word of Stevenson’s poem. I stood there watching the fields, the mountains and the rivers race past me, each one in a great rush to get somewhere. I want to believe that they all stopped and took a deep breath once the train passed them.

It’s not like I have not seen scenery pass by me in a train before. In the past it has always been from behind the dirty window seat. Watching it from open doors is exhilarating. Real colours, real textures, so real that you can reach out and touch them.

Breeze, speed and love

It’s normal to start humming when the breeze from the speeding train blows through your hair. It’s like nature is touching you, caressing you tell you, that she loves you. It’s her way of leaving a part, of all that is passing by so fast, with you.

So I stood there, letting the breeze caress me and staring at the tracks till they hypnotised me. I swear, if I’d stared any longer, they would have started talking! So I broke my gaze and looked away. Ofcourse I was dizzy, but then I could not keep myself from staring at them again.

Then it was time for the sun to set. Sun sets are beautiful, and watching it happen from a train is mystically beautiful. Both the train and the sun are hurrying, they've been running all day and as destination comes closer, they want to get there sooner. They want to get home, get rest and start running again the next day.

A strange love story

The destination was not too far away and now it was time to step out of the gates that were my window to a moving world. Everything was standing still now. Resting, maybe panting, after that really long and fast run across the country. I took my bag and left to continue with the rest of my trip. While I continued with the mundane life of a new-comer in a big city, I couldn’t help but think that I had rediscovered my love for travelling by train again. 

I was in love all over again!