Salutation To A Train

Considering the hassles of modern travel in India today I find travelling a wretched business at my age.But my close relations fear that such an outlook could foster narrow ideas and insist on stretching my body on this contemporary wrack.So I found myself traveling from Delhi to Jaipur by the highly tom-tommed new-fangled contraption the Vande Bharat train.

When it arrived at New Delhi station it looked sleek and unlike other trains that were painted all over with the gibberish of advertisements,but a little worn and stained here and there with the smudge here and a scratch there.Nonetheless inviting enough.

Vande Bharat literally means ‘salutation to a train’.Most likely an extension of Vande Mataram to enhance the glory of the inarticulate train.Far be it from me to make out the impression of the train at this rare honour.Considering the record of ghastly rail accidents in recent times it might consider it a trifle exaggerated and designed to coax it to overwork.That was my impression at least from the unearthly groans and squeals it registered throughout the journey. Quite like an elephant goaded on by a callous mahout in an unwelcome trip.

My impression appeared justified by the four hours of strenuous roller-coaster ride that came close to breaking my poor brittle bones.I was prepared for a smooth quiet ride like that on the tube or metro rail but not the violently swaying and jerking frame of the train and the poorly designed bathroom that put the passengers using it at a disadvantage.When I had to walk to it for a little pee the constant swaying not only made the walk awkward and hazardous but also vertiginous.Two such walks put such a strain on me that I got quite hungry for a meal.

The evening meal looked like an infant’s swill.Covered with fancy painted tissues and garnished with crunchies and toffees.The swaying seat and the adjustable table-top for the food tray made for an aged man’s every mouthful a real wager against spilling.I fear I lost the wager.

When we pulled in at the terminus I felt really thankful.I offered a long mental salutation to the train and promised I would never be the one to add to her daily toil again.

Pondering on that experience I felt I had found in it the signs of all that has bedeviled India’s course of development. Unlike in other countries the planning mostly involved aims such as unloading investments rather than the needs and satisfaction of consumers.Like national highways wracking bones of millions of car and bus riders with unplanned potholes and ridges but earning crores from toll-gates every 50 or 60 kilometers.

The look is deceptively sleek and wholesome but there are design failures galore.Which makes the ride a trial rather than a pleasure.In a country with sufficiently advanced technological skills the infernal swaying and jerking could have been eliminated by cushioning the impact and the improving tracks and wheels.But that is not a priority.The blessed priority is making room for investments or offloading accumulated capital.It is also possible that with the latest stock-in-trade trick of outsourcing different parts had been manufactured in an unco-ordinated fashion and cobbled together somehow to scrap up this clumsy contraption.

It is in the news many more such trains had been placed in order.And not even a wisp of a hint that improvements in design are expected from the performance of the trains and feedback of passengers.In an environment where failures of signalling systems have caused several train disasters during less than a year one after another such concerns are hardly likely.So Salutation to such trains for ever.Amen!

PS: Some people might argue that the salutation is to Bharat,not the train.But then the word would have been ‘Bharatam’ in correct Sanskrit. So it is most likely that the train itself had been intended.

Hiren Gohain is a political commentator