I love train journeys. Given a choice of transport between rail, road, air or waterways, I prefer vacations that involve train travels. But when the issue is about work-based travel, the urgency of travel shifts the gear towards air travel. However, I’m mindful of the carbon footprint involved and the hypocrisy associated with it. Generally my flights rush me to conferences or workshops on climate change, conservation of nature and natural resources. Such is the duality of a modernised and increasingly urbanised life. Personally, I think there is nothing smart about air travel, as it actually takes you far away from the ground and the visual delights that mass surface transport provides.

My passionate and professional travelling takes me to the hinterland of India. And during the recent New Year’s holiday, three of my interns accompanied me to the verdant Konkan region. The visit was a part of our project to document the rare and uncommon wildlife found in the Northern Western Ghats from Gujarat to Goa. Initially, we had hoped to form a group of six to seven people and travel in a hired car, but the smaller number didn’t make it affordable to hire a private car. We immediately made plans to take a passenger train on the Konkan Railway route so as to experience the lush landscape of the Western Ghats. Finding seats in the unreserved train was a terrific experience, as was the bevy of vegetable and snack sellers in the train. Every new station was inundated with fresh passengers and retailers of a new kind. However, for single-minded naturalists like us, the varied scenery was our main focus. Mangalorean tiled houses, wells crowded by women with plastic, aluminium or brass pots, barren paddy fields, drying rivers, mangroves along creeks, lily-filled lakes with waterbirds and of course, the lush hill slopes.