By Madhusree Chatterjee
New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) The little-known towns in the heart of India that teem with life outside the big railway junctions have stories of their own over steaming cups of ‘chai’ - the Indian milk tea.

Journalist-turned-writer Bishwanath Ghosh in his new travelogue, ‘Chai Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop, But Never Get Off’, feels that life takes on unique colours in the run-down hotel rooms, squalid bars, the chock-a-block lanes in small towns where human beings fight for space with bazaars, residential quarters, smoke-belching two-wheelers and three-wheelers, culture, dark secrets and cuisines.

Connecting this diverse and rainbow India is the great Indian Railways that snakes along the country stopping at the dots on the map.

‘Chai Chai’, which documents life in seven Indian railway towns across the country, was officially released in the capital Sunday, though it had hit the stands in October.

The seven towns where the writer decides to get off the train to explore the tapestries of cultures include Mughal Sarai, Jhansi, Itarsi, Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai and Shoranur.

“I decided to write the book nearly two years ago. I was travelling from Kanpur to Chennai, returning from my annual Diwali holiday. The train had stopped at Itarsi station, which is a big junction. I was having tea at the platform and in the 10 minutes that I spent at the station, I heard the names of almost all the train stations being mentioned,” Ghosh told IANS.

”It suddenly struck me that people from all parts of the country pass through this place. So many cultures criss-cross the nation and yet I know nothing about Itarsi except that it is a railway junction. What lies outside the railway junction? Who all live here? What do they do?” he added.

Subsequently, publishers Tranquebar Press approached Ghosh to write a travel book.

“They wanted something different. So, I chose seven junctions that people invariably pass through during train journeys where they never get off. I made these junctions my destinations and that’s how the book came about. I started with Mughal Sarai and reached Shoranur,” Ghosh said.

The book draws inspiration from ‘chai’, the milky tea served on railway platforms, and details strange encounters like “drinking from tumblers in small-town bars, the smell of idli in Guntakal station in southern India early in the morning and a chance meeting with a housewife-turned-prostitute in Itarsi”.

“Chai, of course, is an integral part of train travel. Imagine a railway station without a chaiwallah! I named my book ‘Chai, Chai’ because it is the sound of the railway station,” Ghose said.

The writer said he has used “personal history and anecdotes from his own life, especially childhood, to put the places in context.”

”Most places would be meaningless unless they are seen in context,” he quipped.

The town which comes across as the most colourful in the book is Mughal Sarai, says Ghosh. “It was alive, full of colours and interesting people. You get the best tea in Mughal Sarai. As one moves down south, the town gets sober.”

The writer is inspired by English playwright and novelist Somerset Maugham. ”Somerset Maugham is one of my favourite writers. He is not strictly a travel writer, but it is impossible not to appreciate the travel stories in his works. Then there is Paul Theroux. His book, ‘The Great Indian Railway Bazaar’ is a must read for every travel writer,” Ghosh said.

The author feels that “there is space for travel writing about India being done by Indians”.

“So far, whatever we know of India is mostly told to us by foreigners, mainly correspondents of western papers stationed in New Delhi, who come out with an India book. It’s time Indians started looking into their own backyard - there is a lot to be discovered,” Ghosh said.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)