This weekend was a triangular train journey - Chennai to Bangalore to Trichy to back. And wow, had fantastic time in all the three trains. Lemme detail them later, after I recollect all the movies with train as a major theme in them.
The first movie I can think of - The Burning Train, with the yesteryear star Dharmendra in a action-packed role. I had seen this movie long time back, and the only thing I can remember is - yes, the train was burning and hero was running all along the train.
I couldn’t recollect any other Hindi movie to such singular dedication to the trains. Sippys had the fantastic train scene in Sholay, and it is so technically well shot that it always makes me wonder why are we still not there on the world stage.
Aradhana, with the lissome Sharmila on the Ooty train and Rajesh Khanna yodelling the song “mere sapnon ki rani”. Wow, what a song, how beautiful and romantic Kishore’s voice, and so on …
In the recent times, the master director Mani Ratnam, made Mallaika and SRK dance on the same Ooty train. Chaiyya chaiyya song, Mallaika gyrating, Santosh Sivan on the camera, Rahman’s music keeping pace with the rythmic train sounds and the awesome Ooty train backdrop - it is the dream team on the train.
The Great Train Robbery was a thriller and one triva here - the movie was written and directed by Michael Crichton in 1979 much before he bacame famous for the Jurassic Park. His style of writing is so gran, that when one is reading his novels, one can almost picturise the whole thing in the mind very vividly.
Talking of books, the Orient Express was a murder mystery, all set on the trains, and ofcourse Agatha Christie’s sense of mystery is so good, that the book is unputdownable - especially if you are reading it on a train.
Well, that brings me back to my recent journeys, and I could notice the following
- The compartments were all clean, all lights/fans worked, the toilets were spotless
- There were mobile chargers avaible for use
- The toilet had paper rolls apart from the stainless steel mug
- In the Shatabdi, the breakfast was good, and to my surprise the idlis which were served had a dash of ghee onto them (which connsoieurs would acknowldge adds to the taste)
- Thanks to the recent Laloo initiatives, the fare is much cheaper than before, and if you are afrequent traveller, more rewards are your way.
Surely, the Indian Railways people are “trainin”/tryin to be better, lets help them do it.
All we have to do is travel more, who knows what you might disocver - friendships on the train, maybe love (Vinay - if you are reading this), some peace of mind away from the clatter of PC to the clatter of the tracks, …
Or do you choose to be in front of the PC all day today?
[…] had written about trains and movies sometime back. What I had missed saying then was about the two heritage hill trains in […]