Appa is a railway man. That’s what he still calls himself, some 15 years after retirement. I guess that makes me a railway kid, which is an age-agnostic moniker.

Since we moved with his postings and travelled a lot across India, much of my childhood was spent in trains, at train stations, on platforms, in waiting rooms, Railway colonies, Railway houses, with Railway families. Every break – summer, winter, a long weekend – we were off somewhere. Over a conservative estimate of 400 train journeys as a family, we’ve been to almost every state in the country, falling just two short – Tripura and Mizoram. If we were to count individual and work trips, the count would amount to over a thousand.

But now, I rarely take the train. Mostly on trips to and from Chennai for family gatherings, and App

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