On the Rajdhani Express

In India, when people travel, they travel by train. Trains are microcosms of the Indian complexity; you never know what, or who, you will get when you step through the railcar’s solid metal doors. It’s a stab in the dark, a mystery that unfolds for the duration of the journey.

For the trip from Mumbai to New Delhi, I selected the Rajdhani, a “super-fast” train with a premium price ($35). In return for the added tariff, I was provided clean sheets, a stiff pillow, blankets, freshly prepared servings of curry, and a prompt arrival in Delhi after a mere 14 hours. The train is one of the more predictable rides on the Indian railway system, although not completely devoid of surprises.

The Rajdhani is by definition a middle-class train. The price excludes about two-thirds of the Indian population, who pour onto India’s 24 hour, never-stop-moving, cramped, sordid, exhaustive network of creaking, plodding trains. On the Rajdhani journey to Delhi, we stream pass countless strings of these trains, languishing in stations, or jouncing down a parallel rail, a breathing wall of humanity pressed against rusted metal window bars, layers of eyes, faces, and hands receding into the darkened interior.

Even in the lowest fare “3AC”, the Rajdhani is world-class luxurious in comparison. Each railway car has ten compartments, and each compartment has eight strictly enforced “berths,” or seats. The aisle, a light polished blue, divides each compartment in two, with six seats on one side and two on the other. During daylight hours, passengers sit facing each other on smooth, padded benches with 12 inches of space separating the knees. At night, the benches stack up like bunk beds, three high, and stillness settles across the car massaged by the steady hum of fans.

An Indian train ride is not unlike a blind date with seven other travelers. For the duration of the journey, you share a space more intimate than you might otherwise choose, swapping conversation and being exposed to the waking and sleeping habits of your fellow passengers. Given the possibilities, I’m usually gripped by curiosity (and just a touch of apprehension) as I thread my way down the aisle towards my assigned compartment.

I was late in arriving for my inaugural train ride. Gripped by one of India’s less-curable illnesses, “traveler’s paranoia”, I willfully ignored the admonitions of my taxi driver (and the very clear print on my ticket) and insisted that he drop me at Victoria Terminus instead of Mumbai Central train station. At Victoria, after checking with three independent sources, each one wearing a different colored uniform, I confirmed without a seed of doubt that both my taxi-driver and ticket were indeed correct; the Rajdhani departed from Mumbai Central. Already behind schedule and flush with embarrassment, I quickly capitulated to the waiting driver’s inflated fare for the five-mile ride to the correct station.

Mumbai Central is a slow-moving, no-frills carousel in comparison to the ornate extravaganza that is Victoria Station. Victoria hums with activity, a relentless flow of bodies moving in concert, permitting no room for error, pouring out of commuter and long-distance trains alike. Mumbai Central feels lackadaisical in contrast; bodies are met with space, paths open up without urgency, or risk, of being swept down-stream in a churn of human rapids.

After identifying the Rajdhani platform on the station’s billboard sized monitor, I walked down the long jetty, noting the numbers on the side of the chalk-red railway cars, passing first-class, and second, before arriving at a string of AC-3 cars. My seat was at the far-end of the number 4 car, and as I passed down the aisle, I cautiously navigated my pack through clusters of passengers settling into their seats. At the last compartment, my allotted space for the journey, I turned to behold my “dates”; two fidgeting lines of black, six women wide and thin, tall and short, draped with sheets the color of a moonless night, not a hint of skin other than narrow slits for eyes, horizontal turrets of gleaming white atop a darkened burkha fort.

How to describe the inner paralysis at the moment of encounter? “Frozen”, “knocked off kilter”, “without reference”; these words come close. But before the words came, in the momentary midst of bewilderment, I looking at them, they looking at me, all of us locked in uncertainty- time slowed to record each hesitating motion.

And then, as if a rush of wind, the moment was broken. A young Muslim man, eyes hinting a smile, stepped in the space between me, bags tumbling front and back off my body, and the six quiet women, who shifted on the pale blue benches. “Will you switch compartments with me?” he asked, his English touched with a light American accent, and he motioned to the next compartment. Turning to the new compartment, I gladly accepted his invitation.

Three other men soon joined my rescuer; each with shaved head, white woven skullcap, and a thick dark beard to stroke. They moved about the space in billowy cotton gowns of pale hue, coming in and out of the car, joined by other men who just as quick disappeared, switching in one fluid stream between English and Hindi.

As for my adopted compartment, I drew a decidedly more secular bunch: three pairs of travelers, each a small reflection of India past and present. To my right, a middle aged-couple, easily mistaken as married. In fact, they were as the man described, “sentimental friends,” their lives enlaced through their children. Across the way, two twenty-something men, blue jeans, t-shirts, fashionable glasses, absorbed in the workings of their cell phones. And on the other side of the aisle, an older couple, Bengali by birth, the woman wrapped in a maroon sari with gold fringe, the man dressed like a grandfather, conservative yet with taste.

The train departed Mumbai at 5:45 PM, true to schedule, gaining speed at a steady glide. Before the train had left the last shadows of the platform, the Muslim men began fashioning a curtain across the opening of the women’s compartment, hanging thick railroad blankets across a sagging string, yet one more layer between the women and the outside. In my compartment, we nestled into our seats, tucking bags underneath the bench, trading occasional glances, negotiating space and growing accustomed.

A train ride offers plenty of opportunity for conversation. Night falls fast and the Indian countryside dissolves into a uniform black. I spoke most with the sentimental friends. I learned that each had a child studying at a pilots school in the United States, future prospects for one of the fastest growing airline industries in the world. The woman friend spoke of the “rapidly changing India”, and voiced optimism for its future. “The younger generation is changing India. They have new ideas and new ways of doing things. The older generation” she said, “has to learn from these ideas. We have to change too. Orthodoxy will not work any more.” As she was making her case, I couldn’t help but wonder if some of her comments were directed toward the curtained compartment behind us.

The two young men, perhaps prime examples of this new generation, showed much less interest in conversation. Their attention was fixed on a laptop, which played an uninterrupted string of “Friends” reruns, replete with familiar story-lines, canned laughter, and a trademark opening jingle that played every twenty minutes or so.

The Bengali couple mostly kept their counsel, but they followed the conversation, listening with intent. At one moment of quiet, the husband offered a few quick questions of his own- “where was I from, my occupation, the intent of my travel…” He also mentioned his travels to the United States and his son’s studies in Chicago. In the space between the conversations, the wife spoke to him in Bengali, I think to comment and clarify what she had heard and press him to offer more details.

Most of the ride moved without controversy except for one minor incident. One of the young men, the owner of the laptop, had unceremoniously pitched his bare feet on the bench between myself and the “sentimental friend”, waving them back and forth in a rhythmic habit. Although he said nothing, I could sense my neighbor’s discomfort rise with each unconscious flap. Finally, his patience exhausted, he reprimanded the young man- “Have some respect!” before switching to a flurry of Hindi. The young man, woken from his laptop reverie, dropped his feet and apologized, but my neighbor wasn’t quite satisfied. He let go a few more choice words, pushing the young man to apologize three more times, his hands patting the air with each “sorry, sorry, sorry.” And then it was over.

The Muslim men did not stray far from their compartment. They brought their own food, metal containers of meat and rice, forgoing the railroad’s tin-wrapped meals, which arrived about two hours into the journey. Occasionally the men asked questions of the women, or shadowed them to the bathroom, but mostly the two worlds were divided: one public, one private.

Four hours after leaving Mumbai, around ten, we arrived at yet another million-plus “town” of the Indian plain. I stepped off the carriage to stretch my legs and take a chai, a uniquely Indian drink of tea, sugar, milk and spice. The station was quiet. A few vendors stood by their stalls and small clusters of families were tucked into darkened corners, their homes for the night.

As I turned back toward the train, I noticed that the Muslim men had also descended and were spreading newspaper and a sheet on the platform. Soon, they were kneeling, presumably towards Mecca, conducting their evening prayers. One of my travel mates, (the sentimental friend), drew me aside and motioned towards the men. “Watch,” he said, “the train will wait twenty minutes for these people. We all pray to the same god, but these people, look at what they do. This is too much.”

In fact, the train did not wait long. With three muffled blows of the horn, we were warned of departure and soon the train pulled from the station. Soon, as if some silent agreement had been reached, all of the passengers made their final motions and prepared for bed; benches were converted to bunks, the lights dimmed, and then one followed by another, a growing chorus of snores, both tenors and baritones, rose throughout the car: night time on the Indian railways.

I lay in the dark, listening to the dissonant serenade and replaying the events and reactions of the day, both personal and observed. I thought about the close proximity of diverging worlds; Hindu, Muslim, young, old, traditional, modern- it was all here on the Northbound train. The shifting boundaries of these worlds, tinderboxes of friction and conflict, are as elemental to India as curry, car horns, and the chaotic blur of street life.

The next morning while most still curled beneath blankets, I joined the Bengali woman on her flattened bench and we sat in the quiet, drinking chai and watching the morning rise on green rice fields. We chatted, about her son, her husband, and a few other things. She spoke almost in a whisper, releasing her reticent English words amidst an air of shyness. Then, as the light grew, the blankets stirred, and soon the cabin grew with life; New Delhi station lay an hour away. The Rajdhani was on schedule.