Trains over planes
I love trains. Why you ask?
- I get to spend hours reading without much interruption from humans.
- Eating and relaxing is more comfortable in AC coaches and above than being cramped in planes.
- With trains you essentially just get in and get out. There’s no fuss of guards, check-ins, microscopic security, gates, relay buses, and luggage pickup.
- And with Bangalore in particular, the airport somehow being more than a city’s length outside the city, the air transit hassles and time only add up.
- It saves money too, and some carbon emissions.
With increasing rail speeds in India too now, however gradually, the odds increasingly look in favor of this perspective. And so whenever a destination presents an opportunity to chill-read on rail, I grab it. A day before taking an intercity train, I send many longform reads and articles to my Kindle (via KTool) and immerse myself in perusing them without the distraction of a regular day. It’s like a daylong trip with the self. Only if you want it to be.