Rail Stories
People I Met Along the Way
Some journeys take us somewhere. Others leave something with us.
Over the years, I have travelled with many people. Some shared a seat beside me, some a conversation, some only a brief moment. There are many stories I remember and many people who have stayed with me.
Rail Stories brings together a few of those encounters, stories about people and the way we see them, and about the moments that sometimes make us look again.
The people stayed with me.
I have spent countless hours on trains.
Somewhere along those journeys, I began to realise that what stayed with me was not always the places I travelled to. Often, it was the people I met along the way.
A conversation with a stranger. An assumption I made too quickly. Something somebody said. A moment I misunderstood until I looked at it differently.
Years later, some of those moments were still with me.
Rail Stories grew from them.
It is not a book about trains. The trains are where these stories happened. At the centre of them are people, and the ways in which we see, judge, understand and sometimes surprise one another.
“Outside the window, the world begins to move.
Inside, so do the stories.”
Rail Stories
People I Met Along the Way
Aju Mathew