The Great Indian Railways

If at all I wanted to write something amazing in my life, it had to be about my journeys on Indian Railways. It brings into me a sense of belongingness and excitement that is incomparable with anything else.

Traveling on the Indian railways is not just a travel in itself. The amount of people you interact with is extremely high especially if you take the second class option, which on most time may not be the best option, specially in summers. Traveling in the Indian railways is always a mind blowing affair.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I write about the railways is the typical slang used by the hawkers specially the coffee and chai walas. Traveling in Indian trains is always a mind broadening affair. The number of people you meet, the friendships you make, the food, the sights, the songs, the vendors who run around the train, the filth, the smell. You feel as if it is after all a very small world, with a plethora of cultures under the same roof. Readers who have traveled on the Indian railways often in the past at least will be able to relate to what I just said above.

Indian Railways has a total state monopoly on India's rail transport. It is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting sixteen million passengers and more than one million tonnes of freight daily. Indian Railways is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees. The railways traverse a total length of 63,140 km (39,233 miles). As of 2002, IR owned a total of 216,717 wagons, 39,263 coaches and 7,739 locomotives and ran a total of 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains. This information courtesy wikipedia.

Now these are huge numbers and a good reason to understand why they are called the lifeline of the nation. They travel across the length and breadth of the country bridging boundaries and cultures with consummate ease. They make dreams come true carrying people from far flung places in India to the big cities.

I have travelled in the best berths in the second AC, where the only people you find when you get in are either elderly couples who if you start talking, will praise their sons to death or young newly married couples who stare at you if you turn your head to them, specially the male among them. In short, try it if you are elderly or have married just recently :-).

I have also traveled on the third AC coaches, which are much better than the second AC one. Most commonly used travel mode used over the years has been the second class sleeper. I also had the opportunity to travel sitting for over 24 hrs to my hometown from Hyderabad. I also remember the day where we had to sleep on the corridor near toilet :-) as our train had been canceled and we had to jump on to another one as we had no other option.

It kind of brings a sense of dejavu when I travel on the underground metro trains here in Montreal about the kind of times I have had in India. You get into a metro here and look at the faces of people and you feel as if they are the ones who run this world, they look to be carrying the whole worlds worries on their shoulders. No one laughs, no one looks at each other.

I have traveled on the local trains in Mumbai too. An experience that one dare forget soon. The only thing you find on a platform is people. As you enter into a platform you are engulfed by a sea of people that follow you. As with a sea, there is not much of a choice you have here, the only way out is to give it to the sea, and hope or pray that you will manage to get into the next coming train. You do not have to do much about that too, just allow the sea to guide you. Once inside the agony does not end, you would end up standing on one feet for about 10 minutes before the next big station comes. You would also have to acknowledge the friendly pan chewing smile that the uncle standing beside you gives you. The whole time you are under the mental trauma thinking what would happen if this person opens his mouth, but somehow it remains pretty fixed during the travel and unloads only at the place where he intends to get down.

When I was a kid, traveling on train used to bring the kind of excitement that was just amazing. The preparation to board a train would start at least 2 months before the travel itself. My dad would ensure that we have the tickets in the holiday season and book the tickets 2 months in advance to avoid the last minute rush. I remember my mom telling me once seeing the excitement in me. "Don't come to the village if you are coming just to travel in the train".

Dad being the kind of planner he is would ensure that we are well in advance at the station. Once inside the train, its a jostle between me and my sister for the window seat, particularly if we have got only one of the two window seats reserved. I must say that I used to win the battle most of the time with the kind muscle power I had. Being the nice guy I am, I used to give it to her once in while. When the train used to stop at the station me and my sister would hit the train outside through the window and if it were to start at that would elate thinking that it was us who signaled the start of the train. Idli vada used to be a favorite with my sister and even though I liked it too, I never used to ask dad to buy those. I would always use my sisters love for it to my advantage he heh..I am sure she would agree.

The love I had for train journeys has remained in me. The prospect of a train travel still brings the childish excitement in me. Off late I had been traveling from chennai to hyderabad quite often, which have not been the best because the train usually starts late in the day and by the time you are awake you are at your destination. The journey used to be good only if you could find a girl on your opposite seat ;-) he he he...One can never miss on a opportunity to impress girls and I had this other charm of knowing multiple languages that I used very leathaly, somehow some girls found it very amusing to find a mallu, speaking telugu ha ha ha. I have seen during these travels that the people traveling are all software engineers from hyderabad who work in Chennai like me.

As I said in one of the earlier posts, times do change but they change for the good too. I wish I can go a long journey across the length of my country experiencing the sights, smell, color and diversity. Hopefully the day is not far.

Railways can create long lasting relationships overnight. I remember getting close to a family while traveling back from mavelikara to Hyderabad that they invited us over to their house and we did meet them again.

I will try to get some in depth travelogue of some of my journey's in particular in the upcoming posts.

Enjoy the Videos.

The Polar Express

Part 2 of my stay in canada is a little later than the travel itself but nevertheless its part of the original script. Here it goes....

Sounds of prayers from the nearby temple were humming in my ears..It was kind of soothing to my ears considering the fact that it was a saturday morning and you could actually keep aside all those application, software, network jargons in your suitcase and lock them up for the time being. I could feel the warmth of the tropics as I was trying to open my eyes very hard to wake up finally. Sweet music of the birds humming around, the clanking of the milk mans cans and what not....What!!!!!!!!!!! I jump out of my bed only to realize that the whole thing was just a dream. I could not sleep back with the kind of things I just saw. Why do u dream if you cannot make them true immediately...now that is not an eternal pessimist talking for sure. Just that I am missing home so much. Finally got up, washed my face, made a tea for myself even as my room mates were asleep. Wondered If I would have been home, Mom would have brought that piping hot tea to my bed itself :-)..hmm things change, they change for the good too. Its not too far getting those things back too.

Took the tea and thought I would have a look at the wonderful Montreal morning outside.
Shock!!!!!!! Where am I, Have they shifted the whole city somewhere up in the clouds. Just the kind of view that I had got travelling in that shocking British Airways Flight some time back. I am in a white world! I dont see roads, I don't see grass nor mud, where have they gone. Ok, I know I am going a little overboard with my explanation of the fact that it was snowing here ;-)..but then how do u explain it when you are only seeing for the first time in your life?


It felt as if there has been a shift in the thermal equilibrium in the world. We in India get into homes to find respite from the scorching hot temperature outside, here they get home to find respite from the scorching cold ( a newly devised term, sorry if that is wrong). Looked as if the fridge and weather have switched roles for the time being. I imagined myself becoming tiny and walking inside the freezer of a fridge, hmm sounds interesting. The powers of my imagination has increased over time as you can see. I could see in the horizon, sun trying its best to show its face to the world. I must say that the sun here is just acting as a tubelight which comes once in a while to tell that he is still alive and one day it will get back with a bang.


Although I had known that it is going to snow here in a while, it was still a shock to me to see what I saw. With all these things running in mind, we decided to have a walk in snow to see how that feels and probably click some pictures in the snow to show to friends back home the kind of wonderful experiences I have been going through here ha ha ha...Of course we also had to make that first snow ball to hit someone. Althought I must add that I personally don't like being hit but then this being one of its kind, I actually thought, why not.


There are a lot of first happenning since the time I started from home. So it was time for me to take my first steps on snow. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Now what does this mean in the current context. I don't know, I just used it because I am blogging and there are people like you who would like to read the same. I mean I was trying to impress you with my usage of words and sentences. Hows that?? You don't need to know all the answers. No one is smart enough to ask you all the questions. Am I moving away from the original script here? I think so. This is just to re-iterate the kind of feelings and thought process that I went through to take that first step on snow.

I must tell you that it was an experience of real pleasure. The first few steps were like those of a little kid who is walking for the first time seeing his/her mom calling her from a distance. The snow looked pretty slippery to start with. We had to hold ourselves so that we don't slip and fall somewhere. We took the opportunity to click a lot of pictures on the snow. Pictures that will stay with me for a long time and will be testimony to the already impressive list of first time activities that I have done in the short stay at montreal.

But in the end I must say that it was a very impressive experience with snow. Something that I will cherish for a long time to come. Although the thought of staying at a place where the temperature dips to -40 degrees is something that is sending the next shock wave through my spine.

Culture shock....Naaah

Wanted to write this from a long time now...No Time!!!; is a common excuse normally given but then, that is not the case here. Just did not have the intent to sit and write something is the real reason.

Started from Hyderabad to Montreal on the 18th of may and landed here on the 19th evening. People have this big hallucination about going abroad. To be frank, I shamefully accept the fact here that I was a bit afraid on the prospect of travelling abroad. Not your similar looking people, not similar food. The thought of speaking to a foreigner had brought shivers in my spine, although I have spoken to quite a few already over phone from India. Yeah yeah you can laugh at that!!. But I will have to accept the fact that I was afraid for sure.

The intermediate stop during the flight was London Heathrow.
"Its one small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind". I remembered this famous lines from Neil Armstrong as I took my first steps on a foreign soil, not knowing of course who this mankind I was refereing to. I guess all those mortals who have this foreign land fear like me. I landed at London at about 7:30 AM and had almost half day to wait there for my next flight to Montreal, which would be at 5:30 PM. This is called adding salt to the wounds. The next 2 hours were spent understanding the conversion rates of Rupees versus canadian dollors which I was carrying and Pounds. After that whole lot of conversion and calculations I deceided to go and buy a bottle of water. Price said 3 pounds. The internal calculator started to function again. 3 pounds would be 3*80= Rs 240. Ha ha...looked like you were buying a fortune and not water, though many would argue that water is nothing short of fortune. Did I not tell you that I was carrying my Sony Erricson w810i phone with me. No, infact I was and took the opportunity to capture all the portions of London heathrow with a video of the way a plane takes off from the airport, as if it takes off in some other way at Hyderabad's International airport at Begumpet.

The next 2 hours I wandered the length and breadth of Terminal 4 at London Hethrow, making sure that I don't miss any of the elevators there, you never know the you may never come back here. Just as I sat on one of the waiting areas, I heard a voice from behind me saying, "Arey Bhai!!"...Nah, how can that be, I am not in India. Turned back just in case it was someone, aah,
it was indeed an Indian. His name was Nimish. He was a construction worker and had got a visa to work somewhere in Germany and had spotted me as the only guy who looked approachable in among all the so called Indians in the airport. Huge compliment as far as I was concerned. Just to add to this I must accept that Indians abroad are very very non-Indians. Wow what a tragic statement, or to say they are not very proud Indians. Just my experience at Heathrow, where not even a single Indian who I saw actually managed to spend more than 1 second for an eye contact with me. I said to myself, maybe Nimish is true then. I spent the next 2 hours with Nimish, he talked about his family back in Gujarat and how he got the visa. I must tell you that in the 2 hours, he was talking for close to 1 hr and 40 minutes :-).

His fligt was scheduled at 2PM. Gave him all the best wishes and hoped he would do well in his job. He also wished me good luck for my job here and we parted ways. It was time for food. Went around stalls to find cakes, pastries and what not. Just thought for a moment if I can get an Andhra meals somewhere here ha ha. Looked at the menu card and found most of the items
were priced at about 4 to 5 pounds or higher, my calculator started to work again. Then the heart took over the brain, it said, you idiot you are hungry, keep that calculator aside for some time. It worked and I did buy some thing to eat (actually forgot what I ate). No wonder they say that in the war between the Heart and the Mind, its the Heart that wins the battle most of the time. Don't ask me who these they are.

Managed to spend the rest of the time doing the favourite pastime of guys in India, watching girls. I must tell you that most of the girls I saw at the airport were really good looking, don't know if they all are like that or it was a special day and I happened to be travelling on that day. I must also tell you that Lonon has a very detailed security checking system and you need to spend a considerable amount of time on that to finally reach places.

Finally it was 5:30 PM, I had to go to ally no 11 for my flight to Montreal. I reached there to find that the flight has been delayed by 1 hour. I sat beside a couple who were in their early 50's maybe. From the moment I sat there, the two were giving strange looks to me. I was behaving as if I was not noticing them. It was just getting on my nerves but I had to maintain my dignity, so I turned to them, smiled and asked them, "Are you travelling to Montreal?"..What an amazing question, the flight at ally 11 is supposedly going to montreal, where else would they be going?..I realized my mistake and quickly re-phrased my question "Where do you live in Montreal?". As if I know the nook and corners of montreal.
"What?" The man repled.
I had known that Montreal is a french dominated area and even if people speak english, they speak it very rarely so I had to be much more specific with the words I used to communicate and had to be absolutely clear, clear would mean pick and say words.

"Where is your house in Monteral?" I made sure that it was loud and clear this time.
"We live outside montreal, outside the city" The lady replied.
"Which country are you from?" She asked
"India" I replied proudly.
"What kind of country is that, what do u have there". The lady asked again curiously.

Hmm..that sounds like you have a lot of general knowledge. I wanted to say this but then resisted the same.
"India is a big country. It is a mix of various cultures and languages. It is an agricultural economy but now it is getting global recognition in the wake of the growing software exports, that is why you see people like me travelling to this country"..I said..wow..did I say that well.

Don't know how much they understood the whole thing, they looked at each other and smiled.
I felt as if I am the cultural ambassador of India at that moment. I must tell that the conversation became quiet cordial and warm and they told me about their place thier kids and all. They also invited me to their house some day. I thanked them for the invitation and it was now close to arrival of our delayed plane.

It was a British Airways flight and I managed to find a window seat for myself. Just wished if the seat beside me would be occupied by one of the cute girls I had seen at ally 11 before boarding. It was like a wish come true, the girl comes to me and asks, "is this A32?"
"Yes!!" I replied with a very radiant smile.

The girl looked to be around 24 or around. We talked a lot during the flight. She told about her family, I told her about India, being the new cultural ambassador. Had a very pleasant time talking to her. Just before the plane finally touched Montreal Trudeau airport, some of the passengers were asked to fill in some form for immigration realated stuff. The girl also had to fill. It was a shock of my life when she wrote her date of birth on the sheet. I just remember the date so well now, it said 12/11/1993!!!!!!!...she is just 14 yrs old and the whole time she talked as if she was about 24. That was the first culture shock that I got even before landing at Montreal. Do people grow up very fast here. My heart started to pound with the prospect of seeing things like that here.
Rest to be continued......