Photo of Samarth Mahajan, Omkar Divekar and Rajat Bhargava — from Divekar’s Twitter timeline. Photo of Samarth Mahajan, Omkar Divekar and Rajat Bhargava — from Divekar’s Twitter timeline.

A 17-DAY train journey by three youngsters traversing the four ends of the country turned into a chronicler of many stories from India. After the 265-hour social experiment of sorts, which was a journey in the general compartment of 10 different trains, they returned to Mumbai last week with a new-found insight into migration, labour, religion, nationalism and love as experienced across India.

For instance, onboard one of their train rides between Delhi and Dibrugarh in Assam, the men met people with similar stories of wrong numbers turning into conversations and eventually ending in love.

“We found that in Northeast India, people would go on and on about their love stories and it was delightful to hear them. We saw this interesting phenomenon among three-four consecutive people from Assam, who told us how they had fallen in love after dialing a wrong number or receiving a call by mistake from someone,” said Samarth Mahajan (25), whose idea of travelling on the longest train route of India — between Dibrugarh and Kanyakumari — turned into the 17-day journey.

Mahajan’s fascination with train journeys began with the Jagriti Yatra, a 15-day train journey which takes youngsters from across the country on a pan-India trip covering over 8,000 km to promote social entrepreneurship which he participated in a few years ago.

Mahajan and his two colleagues Omkar Divekar and Rajat Bhargava, who work together in a media production house, discussed the idea of travelling in the general compartment of the Indian Railways across the country.

Their first attempt last month was unsuccessful after the Jat agitation affected train schedules. Their second attempt began on March 9 with a train from Mumbai to Okha in Gujarat, the western tip of the country.

Though the three booked tickets of AC-3, they spent most hours in the general compartment. “We did not want to travel the country as tourists or to see places. We wanted to meet lots of people all over the country to know what kind of life they live. The people who travel in the general compartment of trains do not do it out of choice but as a compromise or a compulsion. The people we met in the train were largely migrants, labourers, construction workers, or those travelling to urban centres for medical treatment,” said 26-year-old Divekar, who works as a cinematographer.

Divekar said on some long-distance train journeys, people travelled in the general compartment in subhuman conditions.

“In some stretches, there would be no place to stand in the compartment. People would balance themselves on one leg for over eight hours. At night, we saw men making hammocks out of cloth and catching some rest,” Divekar said. Divekar, through his Twitter account, also shared his experiences with many hooked to his stories of people around him. The posts which saw a great number of retweets went under the hashtag #unreserved.

These included a senior citizen speaking about the Partition, another who spoke about not sleeping in the compartment when you have luggage to take care of, a woman speaking about her alcoholic husband and many others either returning home after a long trip or those going into another state to look for work.

The youngest member of the group, 22-year-old Bhargava, who is from Alwar in Rajasthan, said the train journey shattered many of their perceptions about the country and its people. For instance, on their trip from Banihal to Baramulla in Kashmir, the northern-most end of the Indian Railways, the three met youngsters who went out of their way, travelling with them on a train ride, just to ensure they had company. “We had all kind of debates with people on our journeys, be it about the JNU issue, about Rohith Vemula’s suicide. We spoke of Kashmir, religion. Yet, it was nowhere a fight. It bothers me when we watch debates on TV on these topics where each person is attempting to push their own ideology as right. It was heartwarming to see that people did not fight but were willing to discuss with different views without much fuss,” Divekar said.

Mahajan recalled one incident where a group of youngsters from North India was making fun of a migrant labourer from Bengal. “When the labourer began sharing his story with us, the youngsters were hooked. They heard of the hardships he was facing to earn money and realised their mistake,” he said.

Divekar added that the moment they returned to Mumbai, the three felt a change in them. “It felt like we have created a strange world for ourselves in Mumbai. I could feel a pressure on me here which was not felt even as we travelled in the general compartment, which is perceived to be nasty and brutal. It feels like we in urban cities are not looking beyond at the people outside of our cities in various parts of the country,” he said.

The three plan to collate their experiences as a book or a website with intricate details of their journey.

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