India 2015 A brief on my journey from Ahmedabad to Mumbai via ‘The Train’

Wednesday, January 7th – Ahmedabad 6.20 Am

Trains. Its the bloodline of a nation and its economy and everyone has pretty much travelled in it a million times. Not me. Excitement filled the entire week in anticipation of the journey that awaited me. Mumbai was the destination and the train was my calling. Leaving from home, its a funny feeling that you get while reaching the station. Mental notes about the city starts to fill up your short term memory. Tiny flash backs, of different times of different places play in your head; just makes you sentimental -unnecessarily- I think. Arriving at the station just in time to catch your train, is also a situation that gives you such intense satisfaction! Like the trip was meant to happen. Just a suppression but reassuring, none the less. Anyways, so the train began, with all the promises of a superb journey that it was to give.

The coach was filled with people! At six in the morning. Later i found out, they do a one hour journey to their work city everyday. I thought that was crazy but who was i to comment, I myself ravel 45 mins minimum; everyday to college. The next crazy thing I was put to was the seat number I was assigned. It wasn’t the window seat. I swear, I had the face of the candy-snatched- #om-his-hand child. I looked at the window as if i was staring at a portrait in a museum. Not allowed to touch it and maintain a basic distance. Atleast when the train started, everything Later i politely asked the lady sitting next to me to ask the uncle sitting next to her to convince him to exchange seats with him. Turns out, they didn’t mind it at all. I thought to myself, this train thing is sweet; the most i could have squeezed out of a plane journey, would have been the guys airplane provided water bottle. Looking at the landscape outside, moved every thought into a haze in the back of my head. The view was simply mesmerizing. Not because of the way god had made it, but because of the way, the people of Gujarat had shaped it. It was peaceful.

Now after a while, the view and the train, literally rocked me to sleep. A gradually increasing pain in my cheeks rose me from that slumber and steadily became unbearable. I looked around and realized that there were no faces that i recognized. Being from Gujarat and specially from Ahmedabad, tea is like water. The tea that you get in the train, is literally just water. The journey went on and on, just like this. Till we crossed Gujarat, and now all of a sudden, i could literally feel the presence of a new culture taking over, everything, the landscapes, the language and also the people. I had to look around the train a little more and to do that I had to get overt my paranoia related to my luggage. I feel, if you are a organized person, having that fear is pretty common. I none the less, got up and finally had a look about the train. It wasn’t grand, but it was amazing, standing on a platform, being tugged along at such nice speeds definitely made me love this way.

The trip was long, not so very tiring and interesting to say the least. Reading it in papers, and seeing the actual country side is very different and humbling. Riding over the bridge after Bharuj is alone worth the entire trip (mental note: do it again). The change of people and scenery, from flat to a few hills, from relaxed to labored faces, from milky tea to tea with water this experience was amazing from beginning to end.

#thetravellingfoodie #travel