Aboard Maitree Express, history overcomes geography

There were few dry eyes as the Maitree Express entered Bangladesh on a scorching Poila Baisakh afternoon on Monday, 43 years after the last train from India chugged down this route. Cheers went up inside the compartments as hundreds of onlookers lined up on both sides of the tracks broke into applause.

The loudspeaker at the minimalist platform blared greetings and the travellers were showered with petals and greeted with bouquets of Rajanigandha (tuberoses) as they made their way into the Customs building at Darshana.

Seven hours earlier, around 7.15 am, the Maitree Express had started from Kolkata, five minutes behind schedule. Almost simultaneously from Dhaka's Cantonment station, a train had left for Kolkata.

The rail service between Kolkata and Dhaka was snapped during the Indo-Pak war in1965, when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan. However, in 1996, India and Bangladesh resumed a direct bus service.

Despite the high security, including security personnel moving with sniffer dogs, the excitement within the Maitree Express compartments was palpable.

The only dampener perhaps was the half empty coaches. The lack of a public campaign meant that the historic maiden run had only 65 passengers in a train for 368.More than half the seats were occupied by media persons.

Just before Gede, the last station on the Indian side, there was a minor hiccup when there was a protest by a local group near Aranghata.Barely had this been left be- hind when the confusion over paper work at Gede rattled passengers. While some were quick to predict that the new service was bound to fail at this rate, others were more generous. "It is just the beginning, hopefully things will get better with time," said one passenger.

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