The Trains

Since childhood, trains have been an important part of my life. They were the link between my city and my mama’s city. His home was right beside the station, and I remember how all of us cousins would sit on the balcony and watch trains go by, honking, slowing down, stopping, and then pulling away again. We even used to count the number of cabins in the goods trains for fun. We’d watch the engine being attached to a waiting train or changing its direction of travel. We’d see people crawling under parked trains just to avoid climbing the bridge to switch platforms. It felt adventurous, funny, and exciting all at once.

There was a different kind of joy in feeling the wind on your face when you stuck your hand out of the window. Later, when we grew older, and the family became a little more comfortable, we started travelling in AC coaches where you can’t put your hand out of the window to feel anything. So I would open the cabin gate, hold the safety bar with both hands, and sit there. Just to hear the honking. To feel the rush of wind. To sense another train passing just a few feet away at full speed. To hear the rhythmic clacking of the tracks shifting. And to watch the land slowly turn into water when the train reached a river bridge, because even the sound changes there. And just like in childhood, I would throw a coin into the river, still not knowing why.

With time, you start recognising places without even looking at the station board. From the river, you know Surat is close. From the awful smell, you know Ankleshwar has arrived. If a vendor is selling sing, Bharuch is near. If someone brings vada pav, then Valsad or Mumbai can’t be too far. The journey itself starts telling you where you are.

However, somewhere along the way, modern trains began to lose this rawness. Automatic doors, sealed cabins, quiet coaches… luxury makes the ride smoother, but it also disconnects you from the world passing by. You sit still while everything moves around you, just like Sonu Nigam’s line: “Main thehra raha… zameen chalne lagi.” The train becomes less of a sensory experience and more of a silent capsule. No wind on your face, no noise, no smell, no chaos… just comfort.

And eventually you realise that the journey isn’t shaped only by the train, but also by where it takes you, where it pauses, where it waits. The stations quietly hold half the experience without ever asking for attention.

Stations are where stories begin and end. They’re the pulse of the journey. The noise, the crowd, the vendors, the announcements, all of it tells you more about a city than any guidebook. Arriving at a station can be an emotional experience, even before you step out. Coming home from a trip, that first moment at your home station already feels like you’ve arrived. Going somewhere new, the station is your first chapter.

Maybe that’s why trains and stations have always been such powerful symbols in movies. They’re not just locations; they are turning points. Even movies know this. I’ll give two examples, both from romantic films.

In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, there’s that unforgettable moment when Shah Rukh is leaving on the train and Simran’s father holds her back… only to let her go a second later (as if she really needed his permission, but anyway). And then begins the scene that practically defined Bollywood romance: Simran running along the platform, the DDLJ theme swelling in the background, Raj reaching out from the moving train, and finally pulling her in. A love story sealed in a handful of seconds. A victory of love over fear, over tradition, over every old belief that tried to keep them apart.

The other example comes from one of my favourite romantic films outside the SRK universe: Before Sunrise. It’s the movie that made me fall in love with Europe… and with a quieter, more grounded kind of romance. Even though I grew up believing in Bollywood-style love, a part of me still thinks: if I ever fall in love, I want it to feel like this. Two strangers meeting on a train, noticing the book in the other’s hands, slipping into a conversation that flows too easily to be ordinary, and then deciding on a whim to change their plans for each other. One day. One night. One long, unbroken thread of conversation. And from that, something real. Something honest. Something beautifully human.

To me, this trilogy remains the finest example of the kind of conversations a couple should have unfiltered, thoughtful, curious, and endlessly alive.

That’s what trains do.

They bring strangers together, they pull lovers apart, they create moments big enough to define lives and small enough to slip by unnoticed. They give you time to think, to feel, to watch the world rush past while you stay still.

Trains aren’t just vehicles; they’re stages. People arrive, people leave, some miss each other by seconds, and some find each other by pure accident. A platform can become a goodbye, a beginning, or sometimes, the entire story.

Whether it’s Raj holding out his hand to Simran or Jesse asking Céline to step off the train with him… the magic isn’t in the destination. It’s in the decision. It’s in that tiny moment where life quietly changes its track.

Some journeys take you to new cities. Some take you back to old memories. And a rare few, like in the movies, take you to the exact person or realisation you were meant to meet.

Maybe that’s why trains stay with us long after the journey ends.

To the trains.