The one thing that makes me feel like I am in a time machine is being on a train. I love the way train journeys make me feel. They give me a rush. A concoction of so many emotions that if I want to explain it, I would have to probably tell you everything that I experience on a train.

Let me start from the beginning then, when my parents took my cute lil’ sis and me for our first ever family vacation to Puri, Orissa. I was in the second grade, my sis a year junior in school. We had heard stories of how train journeys took days but we had never been on a train for more than the time that it takes to travel by an express train from Dhanbad to Calcutta. We used to ask crazy questions to our parents and tried to smuggle in everything into the suitcases we packed as if we were shifting houses and not leaving for a vacation. I still have hazy memories of the both of us being startled when the engine whistled announcing the arrival of our train. On boarding the train we were astounded to see berths instead of the rows of seats that generally short distance passenger trains have. My sis fell asleep after the initial curiosity that is inherent in kids however I kept awake and looked out the window for most of the journey. I just couldn’t sleep, afraid that I might miss something interesting. I still don’t sleep much while travelling.

Train journeys however short always remind me of this experience. There are a host of other images which flash through my mind when I travel by train. Like the numerous times Shaheen and I travelled together, to and from New Delhi, and the times that were and everything that we have meant to each other over the years.

They remind me of the first time I was supposed to go to Manipal to meet Snoopy and how the train arrived without the compartments attached for Goa. A random, long, scary, energy sapping and emotionally draining misadventure ensued which a guy managed to undertake just coz the eyes of his lover beckoned him and seemed like the light house in a rough sea whenever his spirits sank on the highways of Karnataka.

They also serve sweaty reminders of the four months that I spent in Mumbai for my summer internship and of the harrowing local train struggles from Lower Parel to Vashi. Everyday a new lesson on the difficult lives of my country men and how distinctly different our dreams, hopes and aspirations are. And, the struggle to achieve them with a smile on our face. The indomitable spirit of the human kind and the famed Mumbai spirit.

Trains; allow me the luxury to revisit my  childhood, refresh memories, relive moments of glorious success, be in love, dwell on the past, alter the outcome of my behaviour in hindsight and sometimes when I am in really high spirits – play the super hero and probably save a damsel in distress ;P

However, the railway tracks always fill me with a feeling of melancholy. And that is because however hard they try, whichever direction they take, howsoever twist and turn they might or as many miles they travel side by side, they never meet for ever and for all the pains they take they get to meet each other only for the briefest periods of time, probably at a crossover just like new lovers stealing a glance at each other in a room full of friends who still don’t know how they feel for each other or the slight brush of the hands in a market place where the girl/boy has been accompanied with a strict parent or a relative.

That is probably why I love the clouds. They meet whoever they want, whenever they want to, wherever they wish and for howsoever long they desire…