Chai, chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop but Never Get Off

Some years ago, a journalist experienced something of an epiphanic moment. It occured to him, that millions of passengers travelling in trains had killed probably billions of hours at train junctions in order to take connecting trains to their destinations. But no one bothered to wonder about what lay beyond the platform. Railway stations in India, says the writer, stand like fiercely independent states within cities and towns, insulated from the local flavour, as if they are territories of a common colonial master sitting in Delhi. And so, Ghosh resolutely roamed the towns beyond the station yard – to discover the lives of people who may have grown inured to the constant whistle of passing trains.