The Journey

Every time I catch a train,bus or take a drive with friends on the extensive roadways and railways of India I am utterly bored if its in the night time. I mean what's the fun in seeing a pair of headlight go past you or lookout of the window to just see objects of railway importance that are visible if the are in the path of your own window light that is illuminating the objects outside. Or the the sight of a car, truck or another bus over take you bus. When it is in the daylight, I love it. I get to see our environment at its best. All the colors the breath taking sites that leave me fresh and always brings a smile to my face.

Have you ever step into the drivers couch of a Volvo when he is driving down a highway lined with Gulmohar trees and Banyan trees, the only thing came to my head was driving down "Orange Boulevard" with the road covered with the orange flower petals which seem to drift of to the side of the road in slow motion as though the bus is traveling at a speed of 20 km/hr but in reality it would be faster.

Everyone has been in the situation were your in the car and next to the road your on u would have the train tracks.. undoubtedly one would end up racing the other... but have you ever been in a train and cheered that you should win against the car. As kids growing up we use to go to our grandpa's place in Alibag. Which usual meant taking the train to Bombay (Mumbai) and on the way the train would go through the western ghats and the train would travel through a series of on the edge cliff hanging bridges and connecting tunnels we were never allowed to venture out of our seat till we turned 14 or so... that's when I first saw the train travel over a set of tracks that was placed over a uniquely arranged set of metal beams. This site was not scare to me. Now I admit I have a little vertigo. But reason Isaac not scared was because I was focused on the foliage way below were we where standing and was amazed at the way the metal beams were taking the trains weight. That's then I started to picture engineering as a awesome profession.

I listen to a lot of music when I travel I always keep a spare music player like my iPod or my phone apart from my tablet to listen to music. What I always try to do is play soundtracks and music scores that I like and try to orchestra the things happening around me to match the music. It usual doesn't happen but when it does even for a few seconds or minutes its magical to me. And I have tried and tried to narrate it, but always been unsuccessful at it...

What I see is what I see for that one magical moment and to recreate it would be super tough. I can listen to a score which has violins and cellos and watch the trees pass my window and time them and imagine them as a set of graphic visualizes matching there notes and as the train sways and rocks it make me here the brass and the base of the track. All in all a magical experience for me. Sometimes i am stuck to the window lost in the music to the events that I am witnessed that i feel are being orchestrated with the music I was listening to.

When I was in school in Kerala we use to go to school in a auto rickshaw. The Rickshaw driver would be like a car pooling dad who takes the kids to school and back.. so it would be like 5 or 6 kids in the rickshaw and on the way to school we would get a huge railway crossing. Every other day we would have a train passing through but I never remember our auto rickshaw driver cribbing or gripping about how he wish he was a few minutes early so he could avoid the closed crossing. I guess even he loved the way all the kids would get out of the rickshaw run to the gate of the crossing wave to the engine driver and the passengers as there count loudly the number of couches that passed. I still remember if passenger train get back to the rickshaw after the 13th couch passes the gate & if its a good or container train get back to the rickshaw after the 22nd couch passes the gate. Strange I don't recall ever being late in those 2 years.