Author Prajwal Parajuly's newly minted fondness for train journeys

The Hindu

18-06-2025

Back in the day when I was a Sri City newbie, I'd book a cab to and from Chennai. After trying out a few drivers, I settled on Senthil. Senthil is everything I want in a Man Friday: he picks up the phone well past midnight, likes the chutneys at Murugan Idli almost as much as I do and pretends he has his road rage under control when I am in the car.
But he also has issues.
He has the weakest eyesight I have encountered in a human: when I call him to fact-check this column, he says he wears between -10 and -11 glasses. I understand he can do nothing about that but often wonder how he'd drive me if his glasses flew off mid-journey. He also is that rare Indian driver who cannot function without AC. I think air-conditioning is evil, and excessive air-conditioning an American barbarity that's becoming ubiquitous in India. That I must go to every hotel, mall and theatre with an extra jacket even when it is 43 degrees outside should tell you how dire things have become. Senthil and I play a game where I ask him to switch off the AC, which he does … for about 15 minutes. He switches it back on thinking I won't notice. I call attention to the cold. Off. On. Off. On. The cycle is endless. It's exasperating.
Senthil charges me ₹2,700 per trip. The first two times, I tipped him an additional 300. He now thinks the fare is 3,000 rupees. Neither of us has spoken about it.
Now that I am a Sri City veteran, I have eschewed Senthil's Tundra-like Toyota Etios for the more tropical — and pocket-friendly —Chennai Express. Sure, I still call Senthil when I need to go to the airport or have more than one suitcase. But on other trips, the train serves my purpose just fine. You will not find an air-conditioned train that stops at Tada — the closest railhead from Sri City — en route to Chennai. What's not idyllic about leaf-plate food, cross ventilation and the forced camaraderie of a commuter train?
You will accuse me of romanticising train travel, and you'd have a point. I grew up in Sikkim, in the Himalayan foothills, the one place in India unpenetrated by railway lines. I should be forgiven for getting stoked at the sound of a train whistle in the same way you'd excuse a Chennaite for squealing at the sight of a mountain. Frequent two-hour rail voyages in my adulthood are just the catharsis needed to compensate for the daily absence of trains in my youth.
The general fare from Tada to Chennai is 10 rupees, the first-class fare a whopping 18 times that. The women's buggy shares its borders with the first-class compartment but isn't as much of a free-for-all as our cabin. I have ridden the train about two dozen times but am yet to see a ticket collector.
As we weave through lyrically named towns — Anuppambattu, Nandiabakkam, Kathivakkam — tittering school kids join us. The clamour heightens. On one trip, an office goer — blessed with an Iphone 13, a Lenovo tablet and a jargon-heavy tongue — gets on at Attipattu. I owe him my knowledge of the difference between a station and a junction. He's unhappy, though. He declares that hardly anyone in the cabin has first-class tickets.
I ask him to live and let live. Outside, the industrial air in Ennore is rancid.
'That's why this country will never make progress,' he says.
'It's not like you don't have a seat,' I reply. The stench of Ennore gives way to the scent of sea at Wimco Nagar.
On another trip, my colleague Joya and I are treated to repeated decibel-shattering flatulence from a man who joins us in shameless mirth when he realises we noticed. That alone snags him a cameo in a future Parajuly novel.
A rainy day, I eye the lunch of a young man travelling in a three-generational group. Each family member has a lunchbox. 'It smells like the gods descended on your tiffin carrier,' I tell my new friend. I need to be slapped. He confers with his family, who decide that one of them will forego lunch. Feeling equal parts proud and ashamed, I accept the unopened box. I dunk a dosa in the sambar and declare it one of the best meals of my life. I reciprocate the family's generosity by offering them dark chocolate. They pronounce it inedible.
I am nervous that Senthil suspects me of cheating on him. He often calls me when I am smack-dab in the middle of Chennai. 'When are you coming next, sir?' he asks. I splutter platitudes. One day I'll muster the courage to tell him about the delights of temperate train travel.
Prajwal Parajuly is the author of The Gurkha's Daughter and Land Where I Flee. He loves idli, loathes naan, and is indifferent to coffee. He teaches Creative Writing at Krea University and oscillates between New York City and Sri City.