The Train Journey

Travelling by train always seems so familiar. The same crowded platforms with people sleeping/resting on their luggage waiting for their trains, the long queues for platform tickets, the piles of luggage being carried by red-shirted coolies with families walking/running behind, struggling to keep up, stands on wheels selling magazines and books, biscuits and chips, water and aerated drinks (and even samosas, kachoris, tea and coffee), and of course the suffocating, never changing stench that seems to permeate into your clothes and body. 

Apart from being familiar and bringing back childhood memories of vacations, train travel carries that sense of camaraderie (unless your travelling companions are serious jerks who can't get that stick out even for a few hours). There is that shared bond of travelling to the same city, of spending all those hours together, listening to children cry and throw tantrums, of having to drink the same train flavoured caaffee and/or tamaatar soup, of trying to go to the loo while keeping your balance and being stuck in the same train which decides to stand still and let every other train on the Western line go by first. 

Train journeys are reminiscent of playing cards all through, of books and comics shared to while away the time, of constant snacking (trains just make you hungry i think), and of trying to sleep in that narrow space without falling over when u try to get comfortable. 

And of course what makes a train journey most fun is having someone meet you at the end of it. Someone waiting for you to arrive. 

The Fellow was waiting for me. With flowers. It was the best train journey ever. :)