"The frazzled train fell off any semblance of a schedule. The voyage grew longer, past 50 hours; hotter, past 50C. I remember the metallic burn on the window grilles; the hot, killing wind that blew through them; the sizzle of water drops splashed on the face when theyhit the uncovered platforms in the heart of the country; the melt of my rubber soles."
"A fortnight later, having trekked to the mouth of a tributary of the Ganges, completing my expedition from the Arabian Sea to a Himalayan glacier, it was possible to look back on the rail ordeal with affection. Rahul Bhattacharya with his children I wonder, as I write, whether this memory seeped into the heat-addled odyssey made by the runaway protagonist of my novel Railsong. Physically depleted as she is by its end, she is sustained by the benevolence and solidarity of strangers."
Train journeys register fellow travellers, thousand languages, shifting landscapes and climates as layered memories. A 1998 journey from Mumbai to Dehradun became a sensory catalogue of heat, delay and bodily discomfort: metallic burns on grilles, killing winds, sizzling water drops on uncovered platforms and melted rubber soles. A later trek from the Arabian Sea to a Himalayan glacier reframed the ordeal with affection. A fictional runaway protagonist endures physical depletion yet survives through the benevolence and solidarity of strangers. Historical resonances include Nehru's palimpsest metaphor and Gandhi's eventual use of rail travel to understand the country.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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