Indian Railways

Travelling with Indian Railway is always a stunning experience. Rich in experience travel starts as soon as one gets to the railway station. And these experiences keep pouring on you throughout the travel irrespective of whether you want it or otherwise. You may get perplexed – which train travel am I talking about? Focus is on long route train travel in India - on the normal trains, which myriad number of people in India use to connect with each other or to go & worship a god or to go & work. What Uttar Sampark Kranti Express, which travels from the capital city of India towards the town in world’s terrorized paradise Jammu & Kashmir – Udhampur, has on the table to offer? How Gitanjali Express, which connects India’s financial hub to the eastern metro city of Kolkata, takes care of passengers travelling in it?
In India, express train travels at 40-45 Km per hour on an average. There are many types of classes in trains, may be maximum in number than any other such setup. Not all trains have all the classes. General class, second sitting, sleeper class, AC chair car, AC 3 Tier, AC 3 Tier Economy, AC 2 Tier, First class, First class AC – these many classes are due to the mix of affordability factor & services which railway has to take into account. One can travel as much distance as one wants on a simple card ticket without any reservation or seat number by getting into general class. This class is generally jam packed with young people going out station for earning livelihood. One has to be very lucky to first get into it & then get a seat. Second sitting is mainly for 2-3 hours of travel. It is available on routes like Delhi- Chandigarh, Mumbai-Pune. AC Chair car is also available for such short distances. In all other classes passengers are allocated a berth & a seat. Except general class, reservation is must for getting inside the compartment. But in India, very much people are considerate. So you will always find people only with tickets or sometimes without any tickets sitting in the lobbies in front of toilets of reserved compartments. Except general class, sleeper class & chair car all the other classes differ in their coziness amongst themselves. Some have air conditioners. Some have less number of seats relative to others in the same space. Some have additional facilities like electricity points to charge mobiles & to operate laptops. Also to facilitate reading, small light bulbs are provided near berths in AC compartments. Things like pillow, bed sheet and blanket are provided when there is a night travel in some classes. The Top most class (fare & facility wise) is the First Class AC. In this 3-4 compartments of 4 people each are designed. It has quite specious & superior arrangements when compared to other classes. Apart from facilities mentioned, Indicators to inform the busy - not busy status of toilet have been placed in each compartment. Every now & then room freshener is sprayed through the air conditioner. Full time attendant is put in place to serve the requests of passengers.
There is a basic difference in AC & Non-AC classes which puts the entire travel experience in two different orbits altogether. In AC coaches, No hawkers except the official ones are allowed to serve the needs of the people. In AC one will get the things served by Indian Railways subsidiary – IRCTC - which looks after catering services. This rule is followed strictly out of economic interests of IRCTC, I guess. But trains near the ambience of Jalsa (Hindi word) in other coaches due to these hawkers. Heavily crowded with the passengers to a maximum possible extent, these hawkers play a hurdle race jumping around the luggage kept in the gangway & bypassing the passengers standing in between, and at the same time doing their business of selling the goods which they have brought. Also IRCTC vendors try to make a point by competing with them to add to the anxiety of standing passengers. All of them come shouting the name of the thing which they have brought. The sound gets mixed with train’s sound & noise made by passengers. Ant it tries to form a very good rhythm. Private hawkers & IRCTC vendors both generally bring food items to satisfy the gastronomic needs of passengers. They carry a variety according to the timings of breakfast, Lunch, Snacks & Dinner. These articles range from Bonda in south to Vada-pav in west to Samosa in North. But Bread Omlet, Cutlet, Soups seem to be in the realm of official vendors. If you are travelling by Kokan railway (Connecting costal Maharashtra, Karnataka till Kerala) a special variety of Banana Pakoda can be tasted. Lunch & Dinner is simple & generally preferred choice is official vendors. These days Veg, Egg & Chicken Biryani seem to be the popular choice of passengers for dinner. Other snacks items include Bhel, Chikki, Laddu, Puri – Sabji & many more. Beverages like Tea, Coffee, Cold drinks, and Mineral water are served incessantly. Recently I have seen Bournvita, Complan (health drinks) being sold.
Let’s move from food items to utility items. Again wide range of products is put in front of sea of people. This includes Maps of different states in India, Road Maps, Wallets, Combs, Mobile Covers, Pens, Batteries, Pirated books (of Arvind adiga’s to Robin Sharma’s to Paulo Coelho’s), Magazines, Newspapers, Some Aayurvedic medicines. These days a new entrant is head massaging unit which has a funnel like shape with a straight stick attached to it. It has 5-6 palettes similar to flower but thin ones. It is to be put inside the hair & moved up–down so as to get read of headache. It is made in China. To allure female passengers, boxes of Earrings, Bangles, Bindis and Hair Bands are brought to the floor. But this is time consuming business. Interested passengers keep on searching for the best one till the time vendor gets frustrated. Finally a transaction worth of 5-10 Rs. happens after a rigorous selection. This entire saga continues till either the train reaches its destination or passengers start looking mobiles & watches to check whether they can call it a day. But if somebody tries to compile the list of the things which you can get in the train in India, It will be the most incomplete list.
I feel it’s the great Indian Bazaar which makes its way in the trains. Indian Railway drives two economies. One is direct. The other one is indirect. Most importantly Indian Railways, 5th largest network in the world with 63,140 km of rail network, brings in Indianness by offering tremendous amount of diversity in the way one can travel.

- Prasanna Vaidya