The Rails

Traveling by rail stands out as one of the most exciting new experiences from India for me. Coming to India, I knew, mostly just from the Darjeeling Limited, something about the significance of trains to India both economically and culturally. I knew the British changed the landscape drastically by felling thousands of acres of trees for railcar construction in the 1800s. I also knew they provided a valuable resource and point of national pride.

            Until early November, however, I still knew nothing about the gritty details of transit by that system. At that point, three of us decided to take the train instead of the vans back from a mall in Chennai. We took a rickshaw to the station, paid our 7 rupee fare, and walked onto the platform my companions recognized from their last trip into the city. I was slightly concerned by the number of trains - probably more than five – operating on short and long-distance routes along the corridor, but decided to trust their memory. Onboard, I realized the first rule of Indian railways: the cars are at least twice as crowded as the platforms. Thankful that I had left my backpack on the van, I squeezed myself through a tangle of limbs to an empty square foot of aisle space and grabbed the overhead rail when the train moved jerkily forward less than a minute later.

            After about ten minutes, seats had been vacated and offered to all three of us. The girls sat, but I declined and remained in the crowded aisle. The car was pretty quiet, except for the clatter of the wheels through the open window and the drone of fan banks moving the humid South Indian air. The nighttime view through the windows offered little, so, as the novelty wore off, I realized just how dull the little car actually was. It was packed with Indians of all ages, but with the exception of the occasional peanut or samosa vendor muscling his way through the crowd, no one really spoke. Most of them were tuned silently in to the texts, games or Bollywood songs on their mobiles, or just staring into space.

As our ride hit the 30 minutes mark with over half the original passengers still aboard, I decided I was watching the monotony of the daily commute for most of them. The train must be their best option, as the hectic city streets made our van friends even slower than us. I suppose lengthy commutes are common in any large city, but the sight of so many people spending so much time in a disengaged stupor definitely depressed me. Is the battle of auto traffic any better? I think that’s really just another game we play to distract us from the lull between two places we actually want to be. Maybe the train actually improves that lull by allowing fuller rest or contemplation.

I was happily surprised when the compartment noticed out confusion at the Tambaram platform. We missed our stop, and most of our neighbors sprang to life with discussion of how to get us to our destination. One man got out and waited for a solid minute at the next stop, ensuring we knew how to use the reverse train properly. I sincerely doubt the same concern would be paid to a group of lost Indians on the DC Metro. In fact, a similar mix-up on the Delhi metro garnered zero sympathetic response.

That’s why I can’t draw any conclusion about India from this anecdote. I do know, though, that the men on the Tambaram train that night displayed much more communal behavior than I expected. Their interest in us and consultations with each other showed a level of investment in each other and the trains as a system. If they viewed the car as just a collection of strangers they couldn’t relate to, they wouldn’t have consulted their neighbors so easily. If they saw the train travel in the same alienated way, they probably wouldn’t care if some tourists messed it up. Instead, without knowing each other, they seemed to achieve a sort of mutual understanding of the train’s significance, and desire to avoid negative experiences.

This barely perceptible form of community doesn’t mean much, except maybe in contrast to other places. It probably wouldn’t happen further into Chennai, or maybe even outside that train car with the same people. It did, however, alert me to a sort of camaraderie-by-mass-transit-commute that I hadn’t noticed ever before. It was great to know about the definitely intimidating train system that we continued using throughout the semester.