As soon as the train stops on the platform, people near you gather around the gates to get in as fast as possible. They have this un-understandable hurry to grab seats. For the general coach it makes sense for people to rush but even in AC coaches you see passengers seeking their seat as a price. You wait with your luggage while your eyes wander around to say a final goodbye to the platform you are standing at. Everything on the platform will stay there and you will leave. You will leave for the destination you have planned but who knows whether you will reach there as the same person you presently are. Standing in front of the train you wonder what you wonder and then the horn blows.
The train starts to move. You have never seen those wheels that daily carry millions of lives on them but you know those wheels rotate fast. You doubt whether those wheels really are wheels or something else. You have never seen the driver but you know somebody controls the train and controlled are the memories that a train journey imprints on a passenger’s soul.
The train is run by someone and the train runs many others. You sit on your seat. People stare in your face. You are not a miraculous feat of humanly existence but people stare at you anyways. Those people seem to be lost. Nobody is actually there in the train. They are sitting in the train but dwindling between their platforms of past and future. The person who looks outside of the window will feel what it really feels to be alive.
Every platform is the same, only the time changes. Same scene but different actors and languages. Mute the volume, shut your eyes and every platform has the same scent. The same essence. What you see on every platform is an enveloping aura of journey(s). Eager passengers waiting, tired vendors selling, poor people sleeping and sounds of engine and bogey in the background. People who you see on the station and in the train have same looks and vibes, only their bodies change.
Every journey leaves and impression. Throughout your time in train you seem to get lost in the memories that bring you peace. You enjoy the time when you reflect. And then a loud noise of somebody’s ringing phone or shout from a tea vendor breaks your inner silence. The place near the gate is best. You sit there with the gate open and realise that we have abundant green area in our country. But you fear how long these green areas will last. You travel in train to see something different from what you see in your city life. And you wish that this green area stays.
Time passes and you feel bored. Bored of yourself and of the faces around you that seem to be bored. Bored of everything, you want your destination to arrive to finally put an end to this journey. And then tiredness overpowers your boredom and you sleep. You wake up and realise that the train has stopped. It will now undergo cleaning. People are rushing out as if there is some monster inside the train and angels waiting on platform will rescue them. Eagerness to get in and eagerness to get out kills all the pleasure that exists in being slow and purposeful. You wait, wear your shoes and step out with your bag when your coach is finally vacant of hurried humans.
The platform seems same. You travelled a thousand kilometres and you stand where you started from. You know the platform is different but is feels the same. The overhead bridge invites you to take an exit and you finally step onto the main road. Gone is the station. Gone is the platform. Gone is the train. A different place awaits you. Everything stays there and you leave. The city life forces you to realise that this place is different.
You will come back again when the call arises and the same journey in a train shall wait for you till then.
Arpit Chhikara 