Happy to travel long distance by train again.

 15 June 2018

  · Udupi  · 

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Happy to travel long distance by train again. Traveling to Goa by Rajdhani, with family.

Indian Railways played an important role in the making of India. It is difficult to imagine freedom struggle across the sub continent without the Indian Railways.

India became India, a melting pot in action, because ordinary people could travel to any part of this vast country and stay, work and settle in any city or state. Indian Railways made it possible to enable a malayali work in Bengal and Bengalies to come and work in Kerala. And made Indian bigcities into a microcosm of the plural and diverse India.

Love this country because of its diversity, beauty and our freedom to travel or live everywhere. One of my most memorable train journey is from Gouhati to Silcher through forests by a lazy train that took a bit of rest here and there as it was a narrow track. I lived in different parts of India and traveled everywhere by train, trucks, buses, jeep, cars motorbike and few times by bullock cart too..But what enabled to feel and love the length and breadth of this country is the Indian Railways. Remember carrying lots of relief material we collected in Pune to Bhubaneswar by Train to those who were hit by the Orissa Cyclone . The journey with Dr Baba Adhav in second class compartment.

When we travel by train, we feel India. Its diverse landscape, people and everything. In many ways Railways is the nervous system of the idea of plural, diverse and vibrant India.

I used to travel across the country in the eighties and till mid nineties by train. Then flying became normal. However, I still enjoy train journey as I love watching diverse manifestations of our planet and people.. In Europe, US, China, Japan and Russia too whenever I get a chance I love traveling by trains.

The problem in India is that quality of trains did not improve much over the last twenty years.

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22Viswa Prabha, Anil G Nair and 20 others

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