Tu kisi rail si guzarti hai, Main kisi pul sa thar-tharrata hoon
(Your approach leaves me like the bridge that reverberates with the passing train)
Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan released last week in Indian theatres. The film, a fine telling of the conflict between tradition and modernity in small-town India, foregrounds the presence of the train, such as in the aforementioned song. Masaan also presents its protagonists Devi (Richa Chadda) and Deepak (Vicky Kaushal) job opportunities within the railways as a means to a new life, an escape from events in their recent past. Masaan, however, is only the latest in a bunch of Hindi films that has used the train for various purposes within its narrative.
Just the week before Masaan, Bajrangi Bhaijaan saw a little girl and her mother travel from Pakistan to India in the Samjhauta Express. The little girl’s disappearance from the train while her mother is asleep sets off a sequence of events that drives the film’s plotline. Raju Hirani’s PK (2014) saw the train function in a variety of ways, significant amongst which was the occurrence of a bomb blast on it that kills Bhairon Singh (Sanjay Dutt) just as he is to come to PK’s rescue by delivering crucial testimony.
Before that in 2013, Chennai Express and The Lunchbox, two vastly different films in terms of scale, appeal and flavor, use the train to depict a place where strangers meet, conversations happen, but which also helps bridge (even if superficially so) a certain cultural divide that exists in India.
The train and its associated emblems (the station, the railway tracks and even the sound made by it) have actually been a steady presence in Indian cinema across decades. From the time of its earliest representation, possibly in films like Toofan Mail (1934) and Miss Frontier Mail (1936), the train has come to represent all kinds of things ranging from liberation (Bunty Aur Babli’s ‘Dhadak dhadak’ and ‘Nach baliye’ songs) to a place of celebration (think ‘Chaiyaan chaiyaan’ from Dil Se, 1998) to a space where crime takes place (Sehar, 2005) to giving the outsider a slice of life in the rural hinterland (Swades, 2005), but ultimately a place where youngsters meet and love blossoms (Jab We Met, 2007).
Gulzar’s Ijaazat (1987) and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007) use the station for altogether different purposes. In Ijaazat, the railway station serves as an occasion for an estranged couple to reconnect and reflect. It is only the departing train that will bring the curtains down on this transient meeting in the film. In contrast, Shaad Ali’s train station in London allows two individuals, whose nationalities have a shared history, to connect for the first time and spin yarns about their respective love interests all as an excuse for a mutual attraction that they have for each other.
No less a film than Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge (1995) has the train as integral to its storyline. Simran desires to go on a month-long tour of Europe with her friends on Eurail to experience freedom before she settles down in keeping with her father’s wishes. There is circularity to this theme, as Simran ultimately experiences liberation from her father by getting on board a train with Raj.
Much of how trains are used in Hindi cinema today comes from their depiction in two distinct periods from Hindi cinema’s past. For most of the 1950s and ’60s, the train serves as a place of romance and has a jolly, romantic vibe to it best showcased in songs like ‘Hai apna dil toh awara’ (Solva Saal, 1958), ‘Jiya ho’ (Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai, 1961) and ‘Main chali main chali’ (Professor, 1962). As late as 1969, Aradhana has ‘Mere sapnon ki rani’ play out the romance between its protagonists, indicating the train’s importance as a space away from home where courtship can happen. At the same time, the train embellishes a certain sense of dynamism and vitality into these romantic song sequences and is an easy tool to showcase Hindi cinema’s tryst with the countryside with the advent of the ’60s.
This period of the ’50s and the ’60s also showed off the train as a symbol of national unity. As the film academician and author MK Raghavendra noted in his book, Seduced by the Familiar:
“The imagery of passing railway stations’ in films like Devdas (1955) and Jailor (1958) give it this identity. It is this symbolism that allows the wonderful song from Jagriti (1954), ‘Aao bachchon tumhe dikhaaye’, a salutation to the idea of India, to take place from within the train. Mehboob Khan’s ‘Son of India’ (1962) showcases the train with a slightly more advanced allegory. Here it is a signifier of India’s march towards progress and nation building, albeit in a fleeting moment, during the song, ‘Nanha munna raahi hoon,’”
Mehboob Khan’s representation is important because in film after film in these two decades, we see characters going from one place to another, travelling across the country in the train, signifying its importance in providing connectivity across India’s vast expanse. Aashirwad’s (1968) remarkable ‘Rail gaadi rail gaadi’ accentuates this as it talks about the various places that the Indian rail network traverses. On the odd occasion, the train turns into a place where a strong philosophical or social comment can be made – as seen in ‘Dekh tere sansar ki haalat’ (Nastik, 1954) or ‘Apni toh har aah ek toofan hai’ (Kala Bazar, 1960) – but this is precisely because, ideologically, it hasn’t represented vice or evil in the mainstream yet.
This is not to say that this theme is completely absent in the films of the period. For instances films like Shart or Aar Paar, both from 1954, show the train as a place where murders happen or as a means to smuggle ammunition into Bombay. Even Pramod Chakravarty’s Passport (1961) had a part of its violent climax play out on a train. But these were exceptions.
With the coming of the ’70s, however, the train acquires a much more sinister motive. In a sense, this is a return of a certain tradition that has previously shown Fearless Nadia fighting off goons on the top of a train (Miss Frontier Mail), but in the ’70s the dramatic element around a train becomes much bigger. It is difficult to say how or why this change in its representation begins from here, but films like The Train (1970), Shor (1972) and Do Anjaane (1976), actually depict the train as an ominous presence capable of generating mystery, crime, anxiety and causing upheaval in human life.
Pakeezah (1972) plays out this dichotomous nature of the train to the hilt. At one end, it is the scene of Salim’s first view of Sahibjaan, but the same device also causes great anxiety when it nearly runs over the courtesan later in the film. The novel nature of RD Burman’s composition for ‘Dhanno ki aankhon mein’ (Kitaab, 1977) emphasises this shifting view of the train irrespective of what the lyrics in the song suggest.
Two gentlemen who certainly built the train up as a dramatic device in this period were the writers Salim and Javed. Beginning with Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973), the train has an inherently menacing presence in their films. Yaadon Ki Baraat begins with the sound and sight of a train and finishes with the villain, Shakaal, meeting his end on the railway tracks. We see Shankar haunted by the railway tracks as it is a reminder of the events that have happened previously in his life. Even Shakaal’s henchman, Jack, meets his violent end alongside these very railway tracks.
This same circularity in narrative can be seen in Sholay (1975), where early in the film a train is the location for the introduction to brothers-in-arms, Jai and Veeru, but the film also ends with Veeru boarding a train to start a new chapter in his life with a new partner, Basanti. The fight with Gabbar Singh’s men, which showcases Jai’s and Veeru’s valour early on, is also part of a longish train sequence that is as dramatic as it is iconic. Most importantly, the impact of Deewar’s memorable dialogue ‘Mere paas maa hai’ is underscored almost instantly by the sound of the train in the next scene.
It is from this period that films all through the ’80s to the present portray the train in a most frightening way. Sure, films like Rafoo Chakkar (1975), Baaton Baaton Mein (1979) and Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai (1981) still represent it as a place of courtship and romance, but films such as The Burning Train (1980), Bade Dil Wala (1983) Ram Lakhan (1989), Toofan (1989) and Hum (1991) highlight the extent to which the train became a plot device for drama and violence.
Where the protagonists of Tumsa Nahin Dekha (1957) run into each other at a railway station only to fall in love becomes Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani (2013) in the present. And the villain of Parwana (1971) uses the train much like Johnny Gaddaar (2007) today.
Akshay Manwani is the author of Sahir Ludhianvi: The People’s Poet (HarperCollins India, 2013). He is currently working on a book on the cinema of writer-director-producer Nasir Husain. He tweets at @AkshayManwani.