Karnavati Express

Returned home after a 12 day tour of Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Ahmedabad. Between every two city I travelled by train and so there were in all six train journeys, each one unique in itself. Karnavati Express leaves Ahmedabad at 0455 in the morning for a ~7.5 hour journey of ~500 kms to Mumbai. Getting an autorickshaw at 0400 posed no problem and not being overcharged was a very pleasant surprise. I walked on to the platform at the precise moment when the train was being rolled in. This superfast train has 9 stops is largely composed of chair cars and is equipped with a pantry car. Karnavati was the name of the Hindu kingdom that Sultan Ahmed Shah conquered in 1411 to lay the foundation of Ahmedabad. Indian Railways should have a systematic approach to naming trains after historical figures or geographical features and provide informative panels inside the trains; today the panels are about conservation of fuel and various schemes of the Prime Minister.

Tea and coffee vendors make their appearance almost immediately as the train rolls out of Ahmedabad station. Tomato soup shows up at 0700, after the train leaves Vadodara. The tomato soups served on trains are too salty to my liking, though the bread crumbs are a rather nice touch. Gujaratis are prodigious consumers of food, unequalled by any other community in the country. So for a train that is almost entirely composed of Gujarati passengers, the menu is very limited and rather Spartan. Breakfast is bread and cutlet or bread and omelette and starts making the rounds at 0800. But the Pièce de résistance is at 10 - dal vada, hot and spicy - and gobbled up greedily.

Gujarati is the official language inside the train and the atmosphere in the coach resembles a boisterous market place. Reached Mumbai Central almost on the dot. A lot can be done to spruce up and also speed up this daily up and down train running between two of the biggest commercial cities of the country.