I used to take the Amtrak every day from Union Station in DC to Penn Station in Baltimore. Friday evening trains were always full of people who brought dinner onboard. The food smells were awful--there is a reason Amtrak's Cafe Car only sells bland food. Being in a train without air conditioning and the smell of curry permeating the air sounds like my own personal hell.
It sounds like you have a very sensitive sense of smell and you would not do well in India.
But for others - if the point of travel is to have new and novel experiences, and your senses being the primary entry point for experiences, India is the most intense sensory experience I've ever had - the smells, the sounds, and the sights all combine to overwhelm.
As would be expected with a developing country of over a billion people, not all sensory interactions are positive, but with the bad comes far more good, and a worthwhile distinct experience.
Sounds like something a westerner visiting India would say. For people from there (my family is from nearby Bangladesh), a train is just a way to get to a business meeting or to visit family. I don't imagine Indian commuters--in general--appreciate the food smells any more than American commuters do (it's always the vacationers who bring smelly food onto the Amtrak, not the regular commuters or business travelers).
In fact I'd wager that's why the "rich food culture" of the trains has "vanished." What the author sees as the lamentable loss of some cultural phenomenon, most Indians probably see as a laudable step toward modern comforts.
Not by a long shot. Reduced? Certainly. Vanished? Certainly not. I think the author of the OP is writing based on her limited experience, with the Mumbai chef also chiming in under a similar condition.
> most Indians probably see as a laudable step toward modern comforts.
I don't think so. Some? May be. Most? Doubtful.
Besides, "modern comforts" are there for the taking if one wants it. One can always travel first class in these trains, where you have multiple tiers to choose from ranging from air conditioned private cabins to A/C car coaches. Otherwise, you can travel the other classes and tiers where you get a chance to explore what is talked about in the article. To each his/her own.
Edit: I think the author is speaking about the experience in the cheapest 2 classes of Indian railways. Here are the fare class codes in Indian Railways [0]. There are at least 6-7 other tiers of fare classes above these.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways_coaching_stock...
I have fond memories of my aunts making dried fish curry (my dad is from a part of Bangladesh that makes this: http://bengalicuisine.net/2010/lotiya-shutki). It's delicious, but you can smell it cooking in an apartment building from outside.
> Its funny, the conviction that over a billion people of a different country/culture would see the world like you would.
I think there is a tendency for people, often westerners but also Indian elites (and the author of this article is definitely one of those), to romanticize aspects of life there that I don't think ordinary people will be sad to see go.
anyway, the fish dish that you mentioned ( i.e. "Shutki")is kinda on the extreme/fringe side of Bengali cuisine. its not adored by many people. heck even my own parents do not like it. although me & my siblings love it!
Spices - oh boy tons of spices. They mask lot of smells that you would otherwise find pungent - like garlic or onion. I have been stuck in Mumbai metro where someone was carrying a sack of peeled garlic - boy was that horrible.
So while I obviously can't speak for everyone - smell of food is last thing that will bother me while travelling in Indian railways. Sweat, dirty toilets etc though... they are something else.
I personally related to every bit of that article. Used to go from Ahmedabad in Gujarat, to Chennai - in Navjeevan express that takes 36 hours, every other summer. Thanks to this author, I just relived that memory :)
I can almost guarantee that if you're traveling in a non-AC compartment in India, the windows stay open. People only close them before sleeping at night, because when trains invariably stop at its scheduled stations, the passengers don't want to run the risk of thieves grabbing valuables through windows.
There are some smells of certain cuisines that I absolutely detest (fish curry, garlic, etc.) but I can't recall ever being bothered by the smell of food in these compartments. I can recall being bothered by the smell of diesel fumes if the car happened to be close to the front. What drove me quite mad was this, "all culminating in a boisterous game of cards or round of antakshari". Ear plugs don't help much.
Regardless, I suspect if you were in train packed full of people from various socioeconomic backgrounds on a hot day, the smell of food would be the LEAST offensive scent on offer.
I don't know where you got your "most people" supposition from.
I find the smell of certain things, like old cooked broccoli or kale, to make me want to vomit. But if a passenger on the train was eating it, I don't think it would disturb me nearly as much as endless music that interrupts my concentration. I don't see how these are in the same boat, even though the music is merely annoying and the smell of putrid greens makes me want to vomit.
Constantly feeling the urge to vomit doesn't disturb your concentration, but music does?
I'm confused how you can't see the commonalities between the two examples. In both cases, a person does something which disrupts many people in a shared space.
If there is one thing I learned from moving to the American Midwest is "to each their own." Everybody has their own palate, tastes, wants, and dreams. Nobody is "wrong" and keeping an open mind is always the best policy.
Anyway, good read.
Western and Indian trains without air conditioning aren't the same -- in the Indian ones (at least 2nd AC and below) the windows can be opened, and often are. The wind blows away everything but the faintest aroma of cooking food.