I love train travels. The rhythm of the train of the rails, the occasional whistle, the fast-moving scenery: just a few things that make traveling by trains exciting. However, I have to say that train travel in America is significantly different from that back in India. For one, the trains are faster here and have fewer stops. They all have seats rather than berths and very comfortable ones, I must add. I’m writing this from inside a train and it feels as if I haven’t left my couch, except for the fact that when I look outside I see lush green fields and naked scraggy trees heralding a long cold winter. Of course the coaches here are air-conditioned with sealed windows--you would freeze to death or be blown away if it had open windows.
Trains back home are quite different in this respect. I love traveling in sleeper class, as it’s called in India, where you can open the windows and feel the wind in your face. Since there are bunks rather than seats, you can lie down and stretch your legs. There are coaches with only seats that are called chair cars but they are not nearly as comfortable as the one I’m traveling in right now. The leg room is not much, the seats don’t recline as much and it is generally uncomfortable. The fun of train travel back home for me revolves around the food vendors and the many exciting things you can purchase from them. There’s jhaal muri, sonpapri, bhaarer cha or lebu cha, coffee, and a host of other delights. The food fare changes based on which part of the country you’re in; so while in the south, you can buy idli-sambar, up north you can get puri-sabzi or samosas. In America, you have a food car and like in a mall or a food court, you can buy the usual hotdogs, sandwiches, soft drinks, chips, tea and coffee, and also beer and wine, if you so fancy.
A train journey is never complete unless you can look outside the window and watch the world fleeting past before your eyes. Since I’m traveling up north to Massachusetts on a sunny autumn day, the scene outside is very distinctive of the foliage here. I can see fall colors of red and yellow on the trees that have not yet shed their leaves. The rest of the trees are scraggy and bare already. I’m passing through town and cities and on one side of me is the highway with fast-moving cars and trucks traveling in the same direction as I am. If I was making a similar journey back in India, I would be traveling through lush green farm fields, half-harvested pieces of land and again depending on where I was the crops would change from rice, mustard to wheat, sunflower, sugarcane, etc. The landscape I’m passing through right now is very urban, or suburban, shall I say, with little houses and cars interspersed with landfills and vacant plots of nothingness.
Post-script:
I got off at a little station in Amherst which does not even have a real platform to speak of. Its small size makes it really cute and quaint. A few steps and I was out of the station with the four other people who got off with me. It has been a very relaxed and laid-back train journey but I’m happier to have reached my destination.
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