Day Three: Conditions on the Vivek

Day three gave an irrefutable picture of what the “Longest Train Journey to Kanyakumari” meant for a well-bred, ambitious, uptown girl recording life through her lens.

As my feet traveled from one compartment to the next, the jarring realities came to the foreground of my experience. Negligent and scatterbrained staff paired with capricious passengers left the train looking like a comic book rather than a piece of marvel.

People traveling on this train belong to all sorts of castes and communities. There were loud voices of the local vendors selling goods ranging from local paan and fried oily chips to tobacco, spicy chai, and coffee. In the general and sleeper-class compartments, there were around 400 unconfirmed tickets. The number of people stuffed in the train was insane.

Almost every day, I ventured to the non-A/C compartments, which more closely resembled a fish market than a train. Hammocks were tied creatively and every berth was occupied by six or seven passengers. They huddled together like conjoined babies. Nobody cared about comfort as everyone was desperately trying to find a place to rest. Even the ones lying down had to follow an alternate pattern wherein they would sleep in opposite directions. It formed a crisscrossed pattern made up by the face of one with the feet of another, and so on. I tried to figure out they all coexisted so peacefully in the midst of the chaos.

Men played cards in the alley, watched movies on their phones, and listened to regional music to pass their time. Surprisingly enough, there was always a place to stand, a place to sit, a place to sleep and a place to play their favorite card game. Decorum, sublimity, and nobleness were nowhere to be found. The crowd had already made themselves comfortable despite the nastiness and grimy conditions of this place.

I found some breathing space at another open door. I was feeling more confident and leaned out of the entry feeling the cool breeze against my face. All of a sudden, another train came hurling from the opposite direction throwing me off balance. I managed to push myself inside and held tight onto the handlebar from the surge of fear. 

I resumed my observations of the world passing outside. Cities, towns, industries, ponds, landscapes, fields, rivers, ponds, people, more people, blue skies, and clouds passed by. I zoomed to infinity. As the train continued through every possible landscape of India, I realized the cabins were cities in themselves, carrying the immortal and perennial dreams of passengers.

Day Two | Final Days