TRACKING CULTURE

Indian Railways as represented in our books and movies

- BY ARUP K. CHATTERJEE

THE SINGLE LARGEST institution etched in the popular consciousness as representative of the nation's history might be the Indian Railways.

So powerful has been the impact of pop culture representations of the Railways on the Indian psyche that the train called Toofan Express became virtually rechristened in public memory as Toofan Mail, after the release of Jayant Desai's Toofan Mail (1934) and Aspi Irani's The Return of Toofan Mail (1942). And who can forget that a shot of the Victoria Terminus (later the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) in Indian cinema, even as a passing spectacle, is enough to signify Bombay, not least because of its depiction in Manmohan Desai's legendary Coolie (1983). The first steam engine hissed into Thane from Bombay's Bori Bunder on April 16, 1853. Since then, the Railways has carried the nation's dreams on its iron wheels for nearly 175 years. India may be divided by states, languages, and religions, but it is united by its Railways.

Among some of the greatest moments of railway iconography is Ramesh Sippy's breathtaking railway chase sequence in Sholay (1975). Like the famed bookstalls of A.H. Wheeler's and Higginbotham's, the dak bungalows of Rudyard Kipling's stories, R.K. Narayan's fictional town of Malgudi or Ruskin Bond's countless fictional and semi-fictional towns in the Himalayan foothills, Sholay's township of Ramgarh would probably have never existed without the Railways.

Since the unforgettable trains of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)—first in Europe and England, and then in Punjab—began globalising Indian consciousness, Indian popular culture has indeed come far in recreating fascinating railway spaces, as seen in Ghadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001), Saathiya (2002), Gangs of Wasseypur: Parts 1 & 2 (2012),