Train Journeys
Quarantine days are primarily dull, especially if it is a Sunday. Fewer work emails to check and a relaxed skimming over bookmarked arXiv papers with a cup of hot tea leave enough hours to contemplate. Those boring hours with the covid restrictions took me to the old hard drive that I had planned to organize for a month now. Eventually, I found some old photos of my train journeys since I was traveling alone or with my family for work or a vacation.
My father has always encouraged me to take buses, trains, or any means of local transportation to taste the daily life of people. Somehow I also started liking the train journeys, the early morning rush of people to reach the market or work, and the long, happy wait in the evening while returning to their loved ones.
I was lucky to travel to many places in India by train. Those long journeys, conversations with unknown people, sharing the same agony of missing trains, and the happiness of grabbing a window seat significantly impacted me to experience the struggle of living.
Here are some photos that may be boring, but they include a piece of that old me, some unknown faces, beautiful sceneries, and the lives of different parts of India.
Guntakal Station
This photo was taken in Guntakal, Andhra Pradesh on December 10, 2014. Our train to Kerala had a short stoppage in this station. I have a bad habit of getting out of the train at every stoppage and have my footprints on the station of an unknown place.
I remember that I had chai at this station, took a few photos with my Canon PowerShot digital camera, and then came back to our compartment because my mom always thought I couldn't make it to the train once it started rolling.
Tamilnadu → Kerala Route
Hometown bound trains
A cold winter morning at Howrah station. I used to visit home on weekends once or twice a month during my undergraduate days at Presidency. Though taking a bus was more convenient for me, I often traveled via trains. I miss those early morning trains from Howarah on weekends and finally the feeling of arriving home. A month away from home was a long period at that time.
