Kneeling up on their seats, a troop of school girls clapped as a popular Bollywood song played out from a phone. Plaited into loops, their matching hair swung to the rhythm of the train as it curled around a wide arc, the back end snaking out of a bamboo forest. I was on board the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and the climb up West Bengal’s jungled slopes was alive with music, cheering, and hoots at every turn. From the open doorway I could smell the freshness of pine, its clean scent soon overpowered by skinny eucalyptus towering overhead. Leaning into the wind, I heard another favorite filmy number start up and ducked back inside to join in with the singalong.
That morning I had arrived at New Jalpaiguri station in Siliguri, one of the busiest junctions in northeast India, and the origin for the affectionately known ‘Toy Train’ to Darjeeling. Over seven and a half hours, the train would clatter uphill at 4.4 mph, arriving around 5:30 p.m. into the city famous for its tea. Barely two strides wide, the rickety little service has been a much-loved feature of the landscape since the late nineteenth century when British colonizers first set it to work. At the time there was a huge discrepancy—between Darjeeling and Siliguri—in the cost of daily commodities like rice and potatoes owing to the need to transport them up and down the hillside. To solve the problem, the governing East India Company decided that a steam railway was the answer, one that would also alleviate increasing traffic on the single road and facilitate the production and sale of tea.
Locomotives arrived from Manchester in the UK and in 1881, the railway officially opened—the 2-foot narrow-gauge steam train embarking upon an incredible journey, one that would be filled with literal twists and turns and figurative ones too, as a result of physical challenges, increases in tourism, and natural disasters including earthquakes and cyclones that would continually damage the tracks. But this was a railway with resolve, and more than 140 years after it first puffed its way through low-hanging cloud, I was already in thrall to the string of blue carriages as they clanked their way north.
For the first half of the journey the train wound around forests and tiny townships, solo riders jumping on for a stop or two. Passengers braced against the damp air, many of whom were wrapped in scarves and wearing gloves, earmuffs strapped around their heads. It didn’t take long for the Tupperware and Thermos flasks to come out, the aroma of warm samosas and masala chai drifting around the carriage while packets of savory snacks were shaken into palms and shared. Over the din of commentary from elders, chattering students, and large families on weekend breaks, I listened to the hiss of pistons as the coal-fired engine pulled us along, black smoke trailing behind. Outside, tea plantations flowed down the stepped hillside, bushes green and ready to be plucked. Women dotted in between, bent-backed with baskets strapped across their foreheads, and bright clothes coloring the landscape like rosebuds in bloom. They sang, waved, and giggled, hands over mouths as we waved from the windows, hooting as we passed.
By mid-afternoon the train was in its stride, the sun warming my cheeks as it cracked through the clouds. I’d settled into the ride, half-heartedly thumbing a book while eavesdropping on the excitement of rail fans and the gossip of friends. A seasoned Indian Railways traveler, I’d had my fair share of passengers squeezed onto my seat, movies on full blast, and megacities rushing by the window; here it was calm. Butterflies dipped and dived, dragonflies buzzing from one wet flower to another. It was a tonic, meandering so far from the urban sprawls.
