The railing on the staircase, once blue, is now peeling off all the way through. One some of the steps rest street dogs doing their best to stave off the ferocious heat with their hanging tongues. On the platform, a railways clerk sleeps on the bench meant for passengers. His siesta is broken not by the noise of any approaching train – there are few trains in any case – or the din of the traffic outside. Instead, it is the flies surrounding his head that disturb him as every now and then he swats them away before they come back like impudent kids.
A few yards away, sundry passengers do their best to cope with Delhi’s enervating afternoon. They sit and chat, occasionally break into a joke. Some rub khaini, others wipe sweat from their brows. Some children play on a makeshift swing. In the distance is a tea corner, the business is not brisk but good enough to keep the owner occupied and hopeful. Occasionally, the attention is diverted to the distant rumble of a train; suddenly some people pick up their bags, complete their transaction with the tea-wallah. The train whizzes past. Wait resumes for the EMU. Life goes back to normal.
This is an everyday scene at any of the lesser known, or shall we say, lesser frequented railway stations of Delhi. Away from the hustle-bustle of the famed Old Delhi railway station that came up in a historic building in 1864 or the chaos and cacophony of the New Delhi railway station that came up some 60 years later are other railway stations in Delhi which too ferry thousands of passengers every day. Names like Badli, Nangloi, Delhi Cantt, Shivaji Bridge or Sarojini Nagar may not strike a chord with a Metro commuter but there are many, many passengers who take the EMU and sundry other trains from these places every day. The travel time in some cases is less than Delhi’s popular low floor buses, in all cases the price is much lower than the much acclaimed Delhi Metro. Quietly, these run down trains act as a lifeline of the city.
Some stations, for all there obvious faults of maintenance and security. are rich in history: Kishanganj came up in 1890; Sarai Rohilla was started as a halt terminal back in 1878 before it came into news again a couple of years thanks to a special train for Jaipur. Others like Anand Vihar were added much later. All combining to encourage us to some day take some off our every day race, and head to one of these stations. Never mind if you don’t have a train to catch. You could just take a book along to read or just hang out with friends and watch the world go by. Life chugs along on an even keel.
