A hurtling mass of finality

Trains have long been a significant element in Indian cinema, symbolising urgency, escape and opportunity, and sometimes invoking a sense of inevitable finality

Trains are heavy machines. Unlike airplanes, their passengers can actually feel this weight when on board. The swaying and shuddering of the mechanical juggernaut subsume its passengers into a singular body of immense mass, moving through space and time at incredible speeds. As the aerial visuals of the recent three-train tragedy at Odisha’s Balasore took over our screens last week, the full weight of those 800-1,200-tonne mass of metal, wood, fabric, flesh, and bones, must have been palpable to even those sitting on their feathered sofas. The sight of bogies strewn around like a child’s plaything — with hundreds buried