The Original Desh ka Aam Nagrik

It's starry skies for India's aviation sector. A recent IATA report said India is now not only the fastest growing aviation market in the world but also the fourth largest in terms of passenger volumes, surpassing the likes of Brazil and the UK in 2016. And to add wings to this phenomenal run of growth is the ambitious UDAN scheme - an acronym for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik - that will bolster regional air connectivity as well as affordability.

Be that as it may, this blog, a fervent admirer of Indian Railways and train journeys, seeks to present the facets that distinguish travel from travail.


One is a Guardian, the Other is an Outsider

The airports, for obvious reasons, are located far outside a city - detached from and disinterested in its daily affairs. A railway station, on the other hand, stands tall in the heart of a city. Like an old, trusted guardian, it watches over the lives and times of its people - an intrinsic, reassuring piece in the ever expanding quilt of the city's landscape. For towns yet to be invaded by swanky malls and multiplexes, the railway station is a veritable nucleus, a center point of all activity - business and recreational. Towns have shot to prominence in popular consciousness by virtue of their railway stations. Think Itarsi. Think Mughal Sarai. How many of us would be aware of the existence of these towns, if not for their fortuitous location on India's railway network. Many frequent a railway station for a late night snack or an early morning breakfast, coupled with tea from that 'famous' chai wala. At railway stations, there always is one. With airports, however, it's all business.

Across cities, airports are uniform looking structures of glass, steel and concrete - built without imagination. A railway station is unique to its city, with a history and story of its own. What is the defining image of the city of Mumbai? The imposing CST station and not Terminal 2 - swanky as it may be. Lucknow railway station is a monument in itself - with its many domes and minarets welcoming travelers to the city. Perhaps, the city's adage "Muskuraiye, aap Lucknow me hai!" came into being as weary travelers alighted at Lucknow and caught a glimpse of its railway station.

The Majestic - Lucknow Railway Station

Howrah bridge, from the waiting room balcony at Howrah Station

Madras Central, now Chennai Central - unsurprisingly, it is the station with longest name among all railway stations in India - Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. MG Ramachandran Central Railway Station

Sleepy like its town - Bhilai Station

Outside Vidisha station, a temple with an entrance shaped as a lion

                                                                       

4 AM at Dadar Station - hundreds await the first train to CST while the city around is asleep - my attempt at capturing "The Spirit of Mumbai"

Government proof station names, Jai Ram Nagar station, somewhere in Chhattisgarh

                                     

Sunrise at Gwalior station - a replica of the imposing Gwalior ka Kila

                                     

Andheri Station at Sunset

Aap Kataar Me Hai

A predominant feature of flying is standing in queues. Stand in a queue to enter the airport, then queue up for boarding pass, join another queue for security check in, and if that's not enough, get in another queue while boarding the aircraft. Viewed from the top, the floor of an airport would appear like a space festered with ants, moving one after the other, in neat lines, preoccupied with an indiscernible purpose.

Railway stations, in contrast, are free and delightfully chaotic. And its occupants far more diverse. It is almost as if a small, representative subset of the outside world is here, complete with stray animals. The rich and the middle class, waiting to board their AC coaches. The destitute seeking shelter on newspapers and plastic sheets on the platform. The people traveling up and down to their work in a train every day, or 'daily waale' as they like to call themselves, chit chatting in their groups, too familiar with the affairs around them to bother. The ones without reservation, whiling away their time in a disorderly queue, around the general coaches. Then there is the worried lot, lost and unsure - does this train go to Jaunpur? At the airport, it is the same old audience; a mass congregation of a certain socioeconomic class.  Men and women traveling for business, a laptop bag and Economic Times in tow. College students perpetually busy on their smart phones. A few families going on a holiday...

Mundaneness is characteristic to life of an airport. A railway station, on the other hand, is all laissez-faire. It witnesses and plays host to everything from a tearful sendoff of a wedding party, complete with photographers and brass band, to noisy welcome of party members arriving for a protest rally and large religious processions heading to a pilgrimage site.

Then there is the not-so-small matter of announcements at airports. Those making announcements for different flight operators seem to be having an internal competition - who will make the most number of useless announcements? Particularly the announcements relating to "last and final boarding call for passengers" that go on to rattle off names of passengers running late. What is the point of torturing *all* the passengers at an airport because a few can't manage their time? Further, what is the point of ending all such announcements with "Jet wishes its passengers a happy journey". Boss, you made an announcement of apparently urgent nature, surely you could keep the niceties for a later time? But the airlines appear to be thinking of announcements as free air time to advertise their services. Let me announce the departure of my flights 20 times so people know we are busy, and fly with us the next time. B school students making their first trimester marketing presentations are more subtle.

It would do well for the aviation sector to draw lessons from railways. One uniform, automated voice announces the arrival and departure of trains. And at times of an alteration in the platform number, or a train being suspended, a bored voice announces as much in quick, short sentences. There is no Bhartiya Rail aapki sukhad yatra ki kaamna karta hai. Because, Indian Railways is about action and not words.


Now to the Journey...

The fundamental layout of an aircraft does not encourage conversation between co-passengers, And further, large part of the journey is spent in an unspoken, cold battle for supremacy over the arm rests. Trains are effortless at ice-breaking. Small talk about the weather, monumental achievements of Narendra Modi, the greatness of Baba Ramdev, some more small talk about railways, and then as time passes, childhood, education, work and family. In a decently long train journey, you could hear entire life stories of fellow passengers. Crunching on khakhras at that, if the latter are Gujjus. Not that short distance journeys are far behind. In a 90 minute run from Andheri to Vashi, a group around me dissected the faults with marketing strategy of BEST buses, made predictions for the upcoming assembly elections, discussed the bank licences RBI was due to issue, which veered the conversation towards integrity of the Tata Group, which somehow turned towards the electricity bill of Antilla, and further, troubles with its vaastu. Truly, it is fascinating how easily camaraderie develops between passengers on a train. It is well known that the daily waale, the pass holders are a united front and keep seats for another. Daily waale were among the early adopters of the now ubiquitous WhatsApp groups - someone boarding their usual train at a station upstream would post an update about its delay on the group; those boarding at subsequent stations would read it and go back to sleep. One for all, all for one.

Coming back to flights. As if the announcements in the boarding area weren't enough, there is another deluge of announcements in the flight, in two languages. Sure, some of it could be standard operating procedure mandated by DGCA, but what about the announcement about a random coffee table book with pictures from a random photographer that passengers could buy in order to donate to the social arm of the airline? Or the one exhorting passengers to SMS their feedback on the experience on a toll free number. *SMS* your feedback? Is this 2004?

And surely the least airlines could do is provide a decent magazine to read? Hello 6E isn't even a magazine, it is a product catalog, and a horrible one at that. Take a leaf out of Rail Darpan, the in-house publication of Western Railways that made for a great reading companion onboard a Rajdhani Express. The magazine comprised eminently readable rail stories, anecdotes, pictures and experiences.

View from my window

The joy of traveling is the joy of watching the world go by your window. In flight, this is short-lived, offering a distant bird's eye view of the city as it takes off and lands. The rest of it is just plain, vast emptiness. The train, on the other hand, is an up close and personal, intimate window into the life and times of India - a vantage point for Bharat Darshan unlike any other.

Somewhere between Jalpaiguri and Naigaon - West Bengal

Best seat in the House

Literally, Hindustan ka Dil - somewhere near Hoshangabad - monsoon 

Kerala backwaters - between Thrissur and Calicut 

The Vantage Point

Outskirts of Tirunelveli

The aircraft is a closed tube, artificially lit and ventilated, with that distinct smell in the air - is it claustrophobia? The airline's marketing team having made it their life mission to brand every nook and color with the airline's color.  The train is a part of its surroundings - weather outside is the weather inside - good, bad or ugly. Of course, the AC coaches of the trains are closed spaces, yet there's always an option to step out at a station and get some fresh air, and a cup of tea. And then there's another not-so-small matter of comfort. While you get a seat in an aircraft, in trains, you have a berth. And this means an ability to sit with outstretched legs during the day and doze off at night - luxuries impossible while flying.

So to sum up, sure an aircraft transports you over longer distances in short time. But that is missing the point. You don't catch a train to reach somewhere. The train journey itself is the destination.