Strangers in My Sleeper: Rail Trips and Encounters on the Indian Subcontinent

by Peter Riordan

The railway tracks that snake across the Indian subcontinent are a daily lifeline to millions. To Peter Riordan they were the perfect way to meet people - to talk to the real, modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Strangers in my Sleeper follows him around a vast land and introduces his fellow travellers - sadhus, businessmen, flirting couples, secret policemen, holidaymakers, government officials, salesmen and many others. Their views on life, love, politics, progress and commerce, unfolding against an ever-changing backdrop of jungles, deserts, plains, mountains and teeming cities, paint an exquisitely coloured portrait of a people in motion.

Genres: Travel, India, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Peter Riordan has worked as a journalist in New Zealand and Australia. He is currently a freelance editor and writer in Wellington, New Zealand.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers a lot of ground. Basically, if the train goes there, and it is in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, it is covered by Peter Riordan in this book.
However while the travel occurs through all of this geography, the book doesn't attempt to 'cover' all of the places it goes. In this way the book is quite cleverly written. It is about the train travel, and the train system, and it is about the people in the trains, and their stories.
In other books I have not enjoyed the briefness of involvement, and have perhaps criticized covering too much ground, but in this one it works really well for me.
There is enough about the journey - the stations, the trains, the works on the trains, but there are also the side-stories, the people, the politics, the culture of the authors fellow travellers.

[Nataliec7 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book as realised that I didn't really care for it so much! What I read was okay, but it wasn't particularly engaging for me.

[Timothy Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got to about page 60 before I gave up. The dude decides to take a dozen train rides across the subcontinent, he reports on random inconclusive conversations he has with passengers, harps on about over population, poverty and litter, and describes everything that passes by his window - I really couldn't handle another 200 pages of it.
There's nothing wrong with going on an Indian journey simply to write about it, but if an author doesn't speak any of the local languages, so as to really communicate with those on the bottom rungs of Indian society, and if an author doesn't do any research, so as to sprinkle the pages with interesting (strange, shocking or amusing) facts and stories about the places he or she passes through - then it becomes rather dull, UNLESS some really noteworthy, dramatic or amusing things happen on the way, which didn't seem to be the case. On a train, you're just shut up in a wagon with random people, I have taken many Indian train journeys - it's really not book material.
There are some good books by clueless monolingual Western tourists bungling through an Indian holiday, with no background research for their books (EG: Kevin and I in India by Frank Kusy) - but such authors usually create something funny: a drole travelogue without getting all preachy over the ills of India.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too much of a speed-trip and as mostly all set on the trains and railway stations there was lots of sameness ... for me anyway. Only read 3/4 of it.