By sheer luck, going from Ranchi to Cochin, i happen to travel 9 hrs by road, 9 hrs by train and 9 hrs by plane (including wait times). And so this post is my thoughts on the travel aka thass.
Needless to write that i am a big fan of railways, but still i like to write it again and again.
In my opinion, when you cross a place by road, you get to know the past of that place. When you travel a place by rail, you get to know its present and when you cross a place by air (i mean the airport), you get to know how much it has risen.
People like to travel because it gives them a glimpse of different cultures. Thus the mode of travel is very important because different modes tells different things.
In road travel, generally you are at the heart of a place and heart is the last place that changes (Everyone and Everything follows the principle of inertia). Thus,one gets to see the past, the old buildings, the old market etc. A railway station of a town/city is its one of the financial centers and thus lot of development happens around it. Thus, when a train comes close to a station, by the look of things one can make a fair sense of the place. Another best characteristic of train is that the food items sold at a station gives us a peek at the typical food of that area. When you go south, idli and wada are predominant and in north, one gets puri. The beauty is as you go south, from ine state to another, the style of idli, the types of wada, the types of sambhar all vary from state to state and one gets to see the difference in culture directly.
And when one visits an airport, one gets to see how much that city has progressed. A city having an airport in itself says many things but by airport management, cleanliness, one can infer thousand things.
On another front, i am a big fan of window seats. Like a child (literally) i want to sit next to a window. Whenever someone asks me about my seat preference, shamelessly i say 'window seat please'. But this has a reason as well. A window seat in a train gives you a feeling of nostalgia. As trees go pass me, as mountains come and go, as stations come and go, one is instantly reminded of the fact that time is moving forward. As the train moves ahead, one notices that the tree, which is standing in its place, is getting farther and farther. This space distance maps symbolizes time in our mindsets and we also began to look back at our lives. What they say - retrospect. Thats why there are many who just like to sit at window and just keep on looking outside. Actually, they are lost in some train of thought of their past. And add to it the cool breeze of fresh air hitting your face. People living in cities love this feeling.
Sitting on a window seat in air travel increases our belief in ourselves. Watching those houses grow small and then smaller before disappearing under the clouds. The very fact that we are sitting above the clouds; clouds where we once believed that angels used to live. We feel good on the fact that how much progress science has made. We smile, we savour the moment.
Road travel in its view acts opposite to the air travel. In air travel where things appear smaller, in road travel, we are amazed by the vastness. Huge mountains, huge agricultural fields, acres of barren lands are some things that strike me. Even in India which is so crowded, i get the feeling that there is so much land for everyone. Land, land and land. Trees covering roads as if they are welcoming you. Sun travels from one window to another. The cool smell of village air; one enjoys all this on a window seat.
But at the same time, amidst all this positivity, one is reminded that there is so much to develop. Villages without electricity, dust, roads filled with potholes, too much poverty etc. These reminders are essential to give us a reality check!
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