My love affair with trains

A page from the personal diary of Himani Shivpuri As a kid I used to stay in Dehradun with my family. These were days of fun and frolic. During my summer and winter vacations my father would take my brother and me to near by places. Since this is an idyllic spot there was ample natural beauty which takes your breath away. During our summer vacations my father took us to Mussorie and in winter it used to be Haridwar. It always was always a scooter ride at every vacation as my dad would take us on his scooter to these places as they were in close proximity to our residence. This continued until my uncle got transferred to Ahmedabad. So one fine vacation we were to travel from Dehradun to Ahmedabad which meant I was getting to move out of Dehradun and also travel by train for the first time in my life. It was both my brother’s as well as my first train journey and since just the two of us were to travel with our uncle our mother stuffed our bags with a lot of eatables. It was our most exciting journey. It took us three days to reach there Ahmedabad as the train stopped at every station and we enjoyed every moment of it. We were eating, playing and looking at the passing landscape as it changed from place to place. But, one thing that I miss even today about a train journey is sleeping in a moving train. I think that sleeping in a train is far better that sleeping in an airplane. Somehow the chug chug of a train is more soothing than that on a flight. Even when I used to do theater in Delhi we travelled by train to Calcutta for our performances. But, when I came to Mumbai for the first time the only thing that made me feel a part of this city were the Mumbai local trains. I was staying all alone in this city and I had no friends but I used to love travelling by local train. I think I really miss travelling by local trains now.