Train travel is romantic. Personally, the joy of being on a train can be compared to being that to a child who hasn’t deciphered the world yet. Yes, it sounds too idealistic. I have taken enough trains and each train travel leaves some impact on me.
Everything is an adventure – from getting on to the train, looking outside the window when the train is chugging along or when you have finally reached your destination. You make stories, you make connections along the way.
Train travel is like creating a memory footprint for yourself to use in the future. Every station, every person on the train is part of your life. You don’t find them, they find you in some corner of your heart when you least expect it. Writing 500 Miles had given me the joy to find out what was hidden inside my heart all this time.
Connections
Every train journey has taught me something and it has brought me joy or despair. When the train leaves that station, you leave behind the baggage to start a new journey. Even if that’s for a short duration. You arrive at a destination known or unknown with new vigor to find out something. There is a melancholy in every instance of a train journey. You make connections with people and places.
We, humans, are not settlers. We do settle, but we do crave to travel every now and then. Modernity makes it even more worth traveling as the world is connected and it’s easier to travel.
500 Miles is a collection of short stories. The only common part in each short story is a train.
Stories
Traveling in trains is a great opportunity of people watching. Probably the best place. You don’t have to move, train is moving, people may or may not move. You could watch for hours and variety of them. People watching is the basis of great stories. Some stories come from inside, some from watching people. One of my favorite books Vyakti aani valli from a Marathi author P.L Deshpande is about people. And all the fictional stories from this book came from author’s people watching experience. My own stories from the book of 500 Miles are from people watching.
You see people, places, hills, farms, animals, rivers. Everything is an experience when you are on a train ride. The trains not only connect places, but they connect people.
Experiences
If you ask me, what do you feel from all the past or latest travels on trains, then I can name a few. But the most importantly the melancholic feeling of train travel is what makes me cherish all those travels. The stories of people create connections with people. After all, we are humans and only way we are happy is by sharing the moments together.