Rohit Nalluri

There is something to be said about the drifting, swing-like motion of a train that shakes up the debris of the mind. In The Anatomy of Journey, I’ve likened it to a centipedal colander, a giant vibrating sieve. Old thoughts pop loose, like dusty bricks falling from an eroding wall, and new thoughts rise like whales surfacing for air. Thoughts filter in, or filter out, flushed down the brain drain, never to be seen again. There is a very real sense of entropy – of change, at least, if not of decay. The inside of my mind feels scattered before I jump on a train, like a half-finished jigsaw puzzle, like I haven’t been home in a long time, and I get that yummy, lip-smacking feeling that I’m about to roll up my sleeves and tidy up.

A good proportion of my life has been spent on trains, moving in it and being moved by it. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve fallen in love here, can’t describe the fantasies temporarily brought to life or the very banquet of emotions that I have feasted on.

I never sleep on trains. I can’t, I won’t. Falling asleep on trains is a blasphemy for a writer, for a lover of travel and movement, for a poet. Give me a side-lower berth and an unfettered view of the night and I will give you poetry.