Stories from Indian Railways

This is not the story of Indian Railway-certainly not about it, when it started and how it started. Here, I have tried to put down our own general experiences associated with Indian railways.

Let me begin the story with the word 'railway' itself. When a common nepali public talks about railway, we hear that there is a railway in Janakpur Nepal which joins Jayanagar, Bihar in India. This is the story which I have also heard it often in my life.
I have never seen Nepalese railway- and frankly, I am not sure whether that is true or not. But if hearsay is to be believed, this railway moves in a snail pace, will be always crowded and there is no need of paying fair because no one pays.That is the story of Neapalese Railway. Now, today, here, I am going to talk about Indian Railways.

To see Indian railway, you have to come to India. Of Course as there is no train link between India and Nepal unlike India-Pakistan. Nepal and India are such a close friends and there is vast areas where they can share resorces and relationship but lack of infrastructure in Nepal and India's apathy, I think that is what, makes nepal less travelled/untravelled areas for Indian Railways.

For a common man, a big snake like crawling, long, blue coloured railways first look a different creature. Many many coaches, connected with an Engine and travelling in every possible plain areas in India makes life easier for people in India. May be gift of british India, to say that for its own sake, but today, Indian railway plays a very great role in transportation in India. Normal railways look blue in colour, some special Rajdhani Express-red, cargo train brick like colour, petroleum tanks- green and small trains within city-green are the general distinction of railways in India.

Imagine, You try to catch a railway and you have been delayed by three minutes and train has just left on time. This is a very common story. Sometimes, people run after train when it has just started and has slowly caught its speed. It looks like a special movie scene where Shahahrukh/Ajaya/Salman or some one from that coterie runs after kajol/kareena/urmila etc. etc.

WE have to carry our bag on one hand and have to run after it.

With me and with my friends, it has happened many times. Sometimes, we looked fool but that's the part of life.

Mainly Nepalese people board Train from Gorakhpur, Patna or New Jalpaiguri. If you are a new visitor here in these cities, you have to be careful from everything- robbery, pickpocketers, train timing, platform No. etc. If you have a morning train, waking up at correct time is another issue. I know my many friends have missed their train when they got up at 7AM where as their train was scheduled at 6.30AM.

Recently, this happened with one of my friends. He had train of New Jalpaiguri at 7.30 AM and we got up at 7AM. We had so many things to carry and we rushed to station. Thankfully, we caught the train but that experience was horrifying. I personally thought that we will not be able to catch the train. When we caught the train, we shared our stories how we caught n missed the trains.

My friend who took train to NJP had many such experiences in life. While going to Kerala or in 2006 June, while coming from Delhi to Hyderabd, he had almost similar experiences. He had to run after the moving train at those times. But, this time, train was halted and had not started to move when we reached.

I also have missed my train once from Kolkatta to Hyderabad but not because of my fault. It's coz of first train got delayed and I have very horrifying experiences which I have already written elsewhere. But, these kinds of stories are common to all, who travel to India by train.

You like it or do not like it but you can not discard it.