Siddharth Dubey
Ph.D Research Scholar, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR. ORCID id: 0000-0002-9438-787X. Email id: siddharthd888@gmail.com.
Volume 12, Number 3, 2020 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n3.38
Abstract
An Indian train is a space that exemplifies a true sense of transient cultural pattern as it travels through different states of India constantly assimilating people of diverse cultures. In this liminal space, a passenger travels from known to unknown in terms of geography, culture, language, cuisine, sartorial configuration and psychological makeup. Indian Railways offers an insightful analysis of cohabitation – the conflict and the coexistence of people amidst cultural differences.An Indian train is an exemplar of an accurate secular structure, blurring the lines of discrepancies based on religion, caste, gender, sex and sexuality. Prejudices that are evident in spaces relatively marked by certain spatial permanence dilute in a train. A provisional spatial arrangement of a train therefore questions the idea of tolerance and intolerance compared to that of permanent arrangement. As the Indian train incorporates people of all ages and territories, the train is a specimen of the concept of Bakhtinian polyphony, wherein the dialogues occurring between passengers represent varied consciousness. Thus, a train travelogue encompasses unmerged voices, each carrying a unique conscious design. The people travelling in an Indian train are separated on one single ground: economy. Therefore, economic factor becomes an overarching pattern of base to assign a certain culture in a superstructure to each class and each offers a unique perspective to the travelogue. This paper will analyze the trope of the train in two Indian travelogues based on culture, Marxist economic structure, Bakhtinian concept of polyphony, secularism and the idea of tolerance.
Keywords: Indian trains, travelogue, liminality, polyphony, secularism
