“Madam, aapko AC mein travel karna chahiye [you should be travelling in an AC coach]. Why are you doing this?” said the station master at Kanyakumari railway station.
I was traveling by myself in sleeper class from India’s toe to head on the Himsagar Express. Everyone from my mom, to her sister to prospective work clients had already worried out aloud. The contagion finally caught on—I was getting last minute jitters. So I went seeking affirmation from the station master, clearly in vain.
He sat behind a table covered in psychedelic table cloth, wearing a stiff white shirt, looking towards the door bringing the endless stream of passengers that came into his office asking the same questions about the same train. Puzzled, he waited for reasons for this trip on the Himsagar Express, India’s second longest train journey covering 3,900km, over 12 states, beginning from Kanyakumari and ending in Vaishno Devi in Jammu & Kashmir. Apparently, I was the only passenger taking it all the way.
