Tracks of history

Every Indian seems to have at least one romantic railway memory

Indian Railways

The Weaving of a National Tapestry

Bibek Debroy, Sanjay Chadha, Vidya Krishnamurthi

Penguin

225 pages; Rs 229 (paperback)

A few years back, on a trip from New Delhi to Kolkata, my travelling companion in the first-class coupe of the Rajdhani was an aspiring politician from Gaya. Learning that I worked for a Bihar newspaper — I was then a subeditor at the Patna desk of The Telegraph — he started discussing national politics with me. Soon, he produced a bottle of Chivas and, as he drank steadily, his narrative became tinged with nostalgia. 

“Back in the 1980s, when I was a student