I recently had the opportunity to take the Ahmedabad–Jodhpur Vande Bharat from its starting point at Sabarmati to Falna. A distance of 280 kms, covered in 200 minutes. I have taken the Vande Bharat in the past between Mumbai and Surat/Ahmedabad, so this was not a new experience. But I am still enthralled by breezing through the Indian countryside at a speed almost 50% faster than other trains or the road. The ride to Falna was excellent: good food, spacious and non-smelly toilets, well-lit compartments, and absolutely punctual.
When I was young, we used to go to Rajasthan very often. My father had a marble factory in Abu Road, so there was a mandatory visit at least once a year. At that time, we would take the overnight train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad on broad gauge, and then a metre-gauge train from Ahmedabad to Abu Road (either the Delhi Mail or the Ranakpur Express, if my memory serves me right). Including the transfer at Ahmedabad, the journey would take about 14 hours for 700 kilometres. What the Vande Bharat now covers in a single morning once took the better part of a day and a night – distance, in those years, was measured in nights rather than in minutes. Ahmedabad junction was a bustling interchange – so many platforms, so many trains coming and going.
This time, I got down at Abu Road (en route to Falna) and spent a few minutes on the platform. So many memories came flooding by. The platform itself seemed to be the same, and yet it all seemed so different. I remember we used to walk from our factory to the station daily to buy the English newspaper. And then sometimes I would just sit on the platform and watch the trains come and go.
The open train windows have now been replaced by glass. The train speed ensures the outside whizzes past in a blur. The small private compartment (“first class”) has been replaced with a noisy space shared with 77 other people. Mobiles ringing (or singing with music), babies crying, the passageway busy with the constant flow of train staff serving food – at times, it was all too distracting. The train journeys I remember and perhaps long for had a quiet charm to them of an older India that has now moved on to modernity. Now, like life itself, it’s all about “business” and speed, and getting from Point A to B, without the time, , as W.H. Davies put it, to “stand and stare.” And yet the nostalgia, I know, is mine alone. Somewhere in that compartment was a child for whom a train is exactly this – sealed, swift, food served at the seat – and who, thirty years from now, will perhaps miss it as much as I miss the metre gauge.
Also see: Life Notes #68: A Retro Train Ride
