A train journey

We reprint a piece contributed by the President to this newspaper 23 years ago.To travel by train in India is a liberal education. I have w...

We reprint a piece contributed by the President to this newspaper 23 years ago.

To travel by train in India is a liberal education. I have wondered why those who talk about national integration have not given a thought to this moving, shaking, rattling medium for their noble purpose. After all, every god and every goddess has a vehicle in our transcendent mythology. Is not the train the ideal vehicle for whatever gods shape national integration in our land?

There in a railway compartment, third class of course, you see all the jarring unity and the harmonious differences of our country. And through its moving windows you get unforgettable glimpses of the face, the heart and even the behind of India. A train journey starts in that hideously disorderly state of nature which has been the nightmare of political philosophers. There is the war of everyone against everyone, shouting, swearing, pushing, jostling, an uncontrolled exhibition of raw selfishness and ruder aggressiveness. And then the locomotive is in motion and suddenly the spirit of coexistence descends over the compartment, turning the quarrelling crowd into an amiable community. One would have thought that Rousseau got his idea of the social contract after a ride in a third class compartment of an Indian train. And Marx his theory of proletarian socialism.

One incident stands out in my mind. I was travelling from Madras to Delhi. I had with me a Penguin edition of Somerset Maugham8217;s Painted Veil with a provocative picture of its sinful heroine on the cover page. Hardly had I begun to read when a grey-haired professor of economics sitting opposite me asked politely if he could have a look at the book. I handed the Painted Veil over to him and waited patiently for him to give it back to me. But the Professor got himself instantaneously absorbed in the novel and, oblivious to my existence, would not take his eyes off the book.

My fellow-passengers cast covetous glances at him, jealous of the secret pleasure he was sucking out of the pages of Maugham. I did not have the heart to disturb him and at the next station I bought another paperback to occupy myself. It was only at night when I had climbed up to the upper berth for sleep that the Professor returned the book to me after having finished reading it.

Hardly had I begun to read again when another amiable fellow-traveller, who was reclining on his upper berth, asked whether he could borrow the book. That was the limit and I told him that I brought the book along for reading in the train. He then enquired with utmost delicacy whether I owned the book. I said yes8217; and pat came the answer, 8220;Then what8217;s the hurry? You can read it after you reach Delhi.8221; I was annoyed, I was irritated, but it did not take very long before his extraordinary logic sank in, and I handed over the novel to him and went to sleep lulled by the sense of having had a fleeting vision of true socialism.

There is something else I recollect often in the tranquility of my mind. The train was stopping at a level crossing, humming and steaming with impatience. It was sunset, with the evening sky flushed with colour. Against that enchanting backdrop a she-buffalo, a well-fed brown beauty, was standing motionless, while the he-buffalo, in an almost ultra-modern amorous move, put his nose to her, lifted his dazed head and inhaled the urinal fragrance against the evening sky, with the air of a Shah Jehan smelling a half-opened rose, thinking of the lovely Mumtaz Mahal. As the train moved along and the vision passed I murmured to myself the words of Keats: 8220;The poetry of the earth is not dead.8221; Certainly not when you travel by train in India.