A journey by train: An enlightening and pleasant experience of Life

A journey by a Train

It was 6:30 a.m., the time was gradually changing from dawn to morning, the cold breeze was blowing, and the sun was yet to shine with full brightness at the Mangalore Junction when I boarded at side lower berth in  Duronto Express. With a deep breath, I looked at the station to give my final farewell to Mangalore, a south Canara town which lived only in my dream until I visited there in reality.












My destination was Delhi so the train would travel crossing many states, many places like North Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. In a nutshell, the journey itself would give a glance of mini India. I always loved the journey of the train especially when I used to get a window seat because the window projects an epic movie of scenes of different places and people while the strong wind coming through the window only add more experiences of pleasure to the body and mind in the journey.

 As the train travels from south to north Karnataka, the beautiful sceneries of mountains, plateaus, rivers, clear blue sky, and scenes of well cultured good people appeared. Almost all people in Karnataka are well cultured, civilized and very good human beings. Taking sips of tea I thought How life became so kind for me that it gave me the opportunity to visit and live in south India for a long period of time. I always used to imagine a place where everything is ideal, where people would be very polite and it was the most pleasant surprise for me as that place existed in reality in south India.

     It was around 4 p.m. in the evening, I was feeling very hungry when the train was going through Maharashtra and stopped at Panvel. I got down at the platform to give some movements to the body which was sitting at one position for a very long duration. Then I listened to the sound of vendors saying "bada pav". Ah! Finally, I had the chance to taste the  Indian version of burger at its native place. As I had heard that bada pav was the food for the survival of many people in Mumbai, now I realized why was it so. Bada pav is actually very tasty and fully satisfy the hunger.

       Many passengers had boarded the train at various stations of Maharashtra. Now the train gave a real feel of Indian train where people chat a lot and train becomes a picnic spot for them. Though I was alone, I felt at ease listening to the gossips of people. People interact freely with strangers in Indian trains and for some hours they become very good friends. And  I must say the humans are not social animals as Aristotle said, but humans by nature are conscious beings and being social is just a part of consciousness, though most humans are unaware of universal consciousness. Listening to the talks of people gave me deeper insights into human minds. The people with limited experiences and mental training by their surroundings express their ideas about politics, national and international issues. If they meet some successful person they try their best to appease them with their intellect. I was silently listening to these intellectual talks and trying to understand how do the people think about anything and how my own mind was reacting to their talks.

      The view of Gujarat and Rajasthan was also good but I decided to use my time in reading e-books and listening to music. I like Indian classical music, though I don't know the technicalities and skills of the richest music culture on earth i.e. Indian classical music. But certainly, this music gives utter peace to mind and feeling of love to heart.

    Reading a book on the train is a unique experience as one gets fully involved with the content and looking through the window gives glimpses of beautiful landscapes. Finally, my destination arrived and a new journey began i.e. to look for an auto at a reasonable price.