A Slow Journey
I am writing this column sitting in a train. A train that’ll cover the distance between Malmo, where I live, and Stockholm, the Swedish capital, in approximately four hours. This is a train that runs fast, and I have boarded it after many years, swapping it with the option of taking a flight. A flight would have been faster, even cheaper, but its hyper efficient process would have robbed me with the opportunity to study the Swedish countryside.
Even this fast train gave me the opportunity to slow down and reflect on how I travel.
While I sit writing, the landscape outside the large panelled windows evolves. The metamorphosis is gradual. What starts as bright gold mustard fields of the South transforms into birch forest, the branches of the trees slowly beginning to gather colours of the spring, the reds, and violets amidst the greens. The landscape otherwise is even, for Swedish is primarily a flat country.
The train, though fully packed, is eerily quiet letting me the peace that I need to observe and reflect. Around me, everyone is busy with their own journeys – some are bent on their phones, catching up on social media posts or listening to the music, others are nestled deeply in their books, while the remaining few are napping. Even those who are eating are doing so without making noise. Even the puppies, travelling alongside their owners, keep themselves from barking. This quietness, underlined by the gentle hum of the running train, is all there is for noise.
While I sit and look outside, I remember the train journeys once taken as a child. These train journeys were an event in themselves, with mother preparing for them days in advance. I would pack my comics collection for we would have hours to read through them, with no technology to distract us. Now, I am carrying my books to read but invariably my hand reaches out to the phone when even a slight sense of boredom sets in. What a loss that is – I admonish myself as I check my phone for the umpteenth time. I look out of the window again, to the green fields punctuated with log huts painted bright red. Someone lives in this Swedish wilderness, I tell myself, and try to imagine her life, so far out from distractions of the city life. Wasn’t that the life I always wanted, away from the city, living in solace in the forest. When did I let go of that dream?
Well, I grew up. Unreasonable dreams, like that of living by myself in the far-off countryside, were shelved for pursuing a career. Practicalities took precedence, running over dreams, softly crushing them underneath.
Had I taken a flight, I would have noticed the white clouds outside; the cities below would have looked like specs of dust. There would have been a distance from the scenery sitting in this air-pressurised cabin. In the train though, the countryside unrolled gracefully and gently. The world outside the large windows was a familiar one, and as it unfurled, so did my memories and dreams connected with them.
I had long associated travelling with reaching. The destination was the endpoint, never mind that travel needed to get there. In fact, reduce the burden of travelling, make it as efficient so that I can reach my destination faster. However, in doing so, I had forgotten that even the journeys carry within them the potential to transform. Especially the slower journeys taken in busses and trains. A road trip is an alternative. However, the constant engagement that driving requires allows little opportunity to let the mind wander.
A resolve begins to take shape in my mind as the train rolls into Stockholm. Going forward, instead of mindlessly hopping from one city to another, I would consciously slow down. One way to do so would be to take slower means to the destination, allowing myself to experience the journey at least as much as the destination. And what better than taking a train, sitting next to the window, watching the landscape transmute outside to the tender whirr of the train.
