As frequent flyers now question why they must pay through their nose for flight tickets and then face long delays, we chat with a train fan who’d pick the railways over air travel any day
Anupama Ray took on a solo train travel journey of 98 days back 2022
Anupam Ray, recalls travelling by train from Delhi to Chhapra district in Bihar as a child for vacations.
The 16-hour journey to her village in Ekma in the beginning of summer is a memory that Ray, now 30, cherishes. As are the recollections of the building anticipation before meeting her loved ones, squabbling with her siblings over who gets the window seat, and being greeted by relatives on alighting at the station. “Our family home was five minutes from the station and we would sleep on the roof during the nights. All throughout, we would hear trains passing by,” she says to us over the phone. The thud-thud of passing trains was almost a lullaby, she adds, “It was a point of pride if you lived in a village that had a railway station,” she says.
With the recent IndiGo fracas, a lot more people have been mulling on booking train journeys instead.
A resident of Delhi, Ray specialises in making murals. As an artist, railways are definitely a more economical choice for travel, but that, isn’t the primary reason she travels by trains. “It gives me time to think about who I am going to meet and process why I am headed there. I prefer this over just getting off the plane and rushing to meet the client,” she says.
Ray fell in love with trains during summer vacation trips. Representational Pic/iStock
Ray is also fully aware of the issues that come with train travel. “I know that not all journeys are going to be pleasant. There might be people in the compartment that make you regret taking the train but I like to take the chance,” she says. So what does it look like when a chance is worth it for her? “You meet people on the train who are absolutely a pleasure to travel with. A community is built in those 16 or whatever hours it takes. And that, for me, is worth the risk,” she says. Also, this is probably why train passengers are more forgiving of delays than those who travel exclusively by airplanes, “I think it is an accepted part of train travel,” she adds.
In 2022, Ray wanted to take a break and figure out where she was headed in life and thought to combine her love of trains with her inner journey, but something unexpected. “That year, I did solo trips to 16 places — the most I’ve travelled in a year. I only took two flights because I didn’t get a train ticket for those days,” says Ray. The journey took the artist from Delhi to Lucknow. From Lucknow to Guwahati, she took a flight when she didn’t get train tickets. From there, it was on to Bhubaneswar on her longest train journey — 28 hours. From Bhubaneswar she began her southern leg of her journey which took her to Vishakhapatnam, Chennai, Bengaluru, Thiruvanthapuram, Varkala, Halepi, Gokarna and then to aamchi Mumbai. From here, she took her second flight to Bangalore. And then it was on to Hyderabad, Gokal, Indore, Jaipur and, finally, back to Delhi.
The journey took a total of 98 days, and during this trip, her art began to change. She negotiated with a few hostels for free stay in exchange for painting murals on their blank walls. “People would not pay me [for the murals], and would instead ask me to not pay for the accommodation, which I really didn’t mind,” she says.
“Then I was hit with the realisation that this can be part of my art, since people seemed to actually like murals. I realised I could make it financially profitable as well,” she adds. An added advantage was, curious onlookers would stop and ask what the mural was about.
During a recent work trip, an NGO in Patna asked her if she would rather fly there. “The flight is just one-and-a-half hours long. I had done that a few other times, but always felt that the transition [from travel to work] would happen too quickly. I felt like that didn’t give me enough space. Finally I told the NGO that I will come by train, I need time to think,” she adds.
While ending the call, Ray tells us, “Everything else will be figured out [in life] but it’s fun to meet people on the train!”
So next time travelling if you can, catch a train, just for old time’s sake!
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