"The Indian railways were, of course, a perfect model of how Britain
sought to tame—and consistently failed to break—its grand possession: a
vast demi-continent engirded by binaries along which monstrous vehicles
mechanically churned through the swarming darkness, though often at an
Indian rather than an Industrial Age pace. Then, when the British left,
trains became a hideous model of the mess its former rulers had left
behind them: during the chaos of partition, trains would roll into
stations piled high with slaughtered bodies, their carriages running
with blood. Even this February, when Hindu-Muslim violence broke out
again in India, it began with an attack on a train. Trains in India
stand for a world laid down (quite literally) on foreign lines, yet
haunted to this day by tribal divisions that no timetables or
stationmasters can begin to wish away…"
Asian Journey
By Pico Iyer
Published in 2002 but still a good read.
[via plep]
