Chai Chai: Travels In Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

by Bishwanath Ghosh

Biswanath Ghosh paints an amazing and mystical picture in this book, where he starts his journey from the Itarsi Station, Madhya Pradesh.

Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off allows the reader to join the author-narrator while he experiences new places and faces. The beautiful sun, the rich cultural history and the people are all rendered with humor and love. One can almost feel the narrator going through the little lanes in Kanpur and then end up in Madras.

Whether one is drinking tea at a local café or sitting with numerous people in a local train, Ghosh breathes life into every moment. While speculating on life’s little moments, the author also realizes the amount of hours spent in waiting at railway junctions. The destinations are not just stations and stops for trains to drop commuters off. They represent a different life and a new adventure everyday.

There are little towns that people have never heard of which Ghosh talks extensively about such as Shoranpur, Arakkonam, Itarsi, Jhansi and Mughal Sarai. What makes this work unique is that these places are described in terms of the people encountered. Trains play an important role in bringing people from all parts of the country and all walks of life together. This is where the true story lies.

Ghosh enriches this story with various descriptions and personal insights. The book is witty, humorous and helps rediscover those areas of India which most have forgotten about due to commercial tourism. No matter how obscure a town maybe, it still holds a rich cultural history which Ghosh describes with avid details.

Genres: Travel, India, Nonfiction, Travelogue, Indian Literature, Cultural, Contemporary

226 pages, Paperback

First published May 22, 2012

About the author

Bishwanath Ghosh is a writer, journalist and poet, born on 26 December 1970 in Kanpur. After spending much of his working life in Chennai, he is now settled in Calcutta, where he presently serves as an associate editor with The Hindu newspaper. His books include:

1. Jiyo Banaras (जियो बनारस), a collection of Hindi poems on Banaras, published January 2022;
2. Aimless in Banaras: Wanderings in India’s Holiest City (2019);
3. Gazing at Neighbours: Travels Along the Line That Partitioned India (2017);
4. Longing, Belonging: An Outsider at Home in Calcutta (2014);
5. Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began (2012), which is a portrait of Madras, now known as Chennai.
6. Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop but Never Get Off (2009), which The Telegraph (Calcutta) called "a delightful travelogue with a difference".

He also contributed two stories to Urban Shots, a collection of short stories published in 2010.

Reviews

[Indrani Sen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet little book about traveling to India's main railway junctions. We often pass them by without wondering about what lies beyond the station. So the writer travels to Itarsi, Jhansi, Mughalsarai and Shoranur among a few other places. The writing flows easy and the anecdotes are nice. The flavor of local food and dive bars come across very well. I personally want to travel to Shoranur to Nilambur now, as the train there passed through the ultra green teak plantation. While I have not particularly gone to many small towns in India, I have driven through many and could very well identify with what the writer said. I enjoyed the book thoroughly.

[Indian]

Very poor account of few of the central India's railway junction (Jhansi,Itarsi etc). The problem with this kind of book is the shallow depth of it's writer. Biswanath Ghosh resembles the new breed of hasty writers who have been coaxed by the publishers to pen books for the young English readers of our country.
This book reads like a newspaper article with no insights into the history of this place. All the 4-5 stories narrates only what the author saw & heard in his 1-2 days of staying at these resolute place.
Utterly disappointing & waste of time.

Better read : Paul Therox's 1980's 'The Great Railway Bazaar'

[Gaurav · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was convinced about the book after reading the prologue. The problem is that the prologue probably is the only best part of the book. The author has undoubtedly picked up an interesting topic to write a book on, unfortunately he has not done justice to it.
The book clearly lacks the magic which makes you stay hooked to some books. The book fails to cover any one topic in depth and is a very poorly written narrative. Seems like someone wrote a bad diary while traveling and then it was published.
The account of travel becomes repetitive and shallow. With a lot of time given to author trying to find a hotel or spending his time in the bar. In fact with half the pages dedicated to the stories from the bar the book could have been given a apt title of 'bar-bar' instead of 'chai-chai'

[Sairam Krishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so enjoyed Aimless in Banaras that though I had actually picked up something else to read after, I started Chai, Chai too, and read it in a single day. This is a good little travel book, and I'm so glad. Indian bestsellers always tend to be underwhelming and unfelt, pandering to the lowest-common-denominator, but Chai is honest, well-written, and satisfying. Ghosh is a good writer, and in these portraits of small towns shaped by (and left behind by) the Indian Railways, he manages to evoke a distinct nostalgia for the simpler India of just a few decades ago. This is Chai, Chai's success: it focuses on something all of India holds dear - the trains and the towns it passes through - and evokes in us something every Indian has felt, the sensation of looking out the window and wondering what these places were about.

[Apeksha · Rating 1 out of 5]

DO NOT BUY this!!
Its a waste of money & time.
Travel stories can be really interesting but this is all about what the author got to eat & desperate for drinks!!
Its a very dry & boring book..Nothing close to what I'd expected.

[Gorab · Rating 3 out of 5]

★★½☆☆
This is kinda not my cup of tea but went along pretty well with my cups of tea :)
Picked it as a tea break companion at office for a couple of weeks or so. Wouldn't have considered it as a tea time reading stuff if not for its cover and title.

Deals with exploring a few railway stations of India which are quite popular on the railway map because of their strategic junction locations, but are otherwise nonexistent in terms of travelers choosing them as destinations.

Light hearted travelogue with the details oriented towards the author's routine and the persons he encountered. So if you're looking for a definitive history guide for the places visited, please avoid it. Its more like a table talk of a friend describing his recent planned trips to random off beat destinations.

Ambitious and innovative project, which did not get executed well. It was evident towards the last couple of places that the author wasn't even interested to explore the places. Lacked dedication and the disinterested attitude was contagious to the reader. Could have been better if there were inclusions and descriptions of "Chai" time experiences of different places. This was more like "Whiskey, whiskey"!

[Deepika · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of the book was extremely promising which is why I wanted to read it.
I was hoping that it would charm and delight like Srinath Perur's "If it's Monday , It Must be Madurai". Needless to say , I was extremely disappointed.

As a teenager who spent all her summer vacations travelling along the length and breadth of India on trains , I was more than familiar with the various junctions chosen to be explored in the book. We would wait anxiously for the next "main junction" to arrive so that we could sample the steaming hot delicacies of the state we were traversing through. We would crane our necks through the narrow windows hoping to gimpse the city that housed this important junction. As the train pulled away and while it was still cruising at low speed , we would get a quick peek of the city..it's shops , people, roads and mainly , it's normalcy.

It is a known fact that except for a select few metropolitan cities that dazzle it's visitors , pretty much all the cities in India are built to function..not to dazzle. It appears like the author was expecting to be dazzled by these "Main junction cities/tows" and when that did not happen he decided to haunt the bars instead in the hopes of being 'inspired' by the stories of the people frequenting these bars. We know this because the book reads like a "daily-dairy" where each and every conversation the author has is recorded word-to-word. It is exhausting.The author seems to have stumbled upon an interesting idea for a book but decided to give up on making it interesting and focussing instead on bar-hopping.

I feel comprelled to write this review because I truly felt that this was a wonderful subject that was not done justice.

[Archana Purohit · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of studying life in the towns around prominent railway junctions in India seemed very intriguing. You know what an interesting book it can be when the author fleetingly talks about how the decreasing importance of these junctions (due to technologically improved trains which no longer need to stop for long periods at these junctions) affects the livelihood. However, unfortunately, all you get is the authors search for hotel accomodation and his experiences in the hotel room. His explorations in the town involve taking walks to the station and then sitting in bars and talking with the regulars there. Instead of the name chai, chai, something around his drinks and bars would have fitted the book much better.

[Gouthami · Rating 1 out of 5]

One time pass book full of trivia. The author is full of himself. And the only reason I completed is was because I was curious about these places. I think there were two sentences in the book that could count as good writing. Only read it if you travel on trains a lot.

[Aravind Ajaykumar · Rating 1 out of 5]

What is the first thing you think of when your train stops at a railway station ? The 'Chai Chai' call by the IRCTC employees. Perhaps that's the same for any railway station across the length and breadth of the country. And that might be one of the reasons why I took this book. Truth be said, it was a boring and shallow description.

Ever since I started using the railways, I used to wonder about the life behind all these stations. Will the life be the same like the magnificant station of that city ? It was always a question mark. The topic selected by the author was an interesting one. But the way Bishwanath Ghosh has gone about writing this seemed to be lacking life. It was never about the city, but his plight in finding a hotel followed by his rush to find a bar or to send someone to get him a bottle of whiskey. All chapters would have atleast five pages dedicated to the same plight over and over. There was very little or no history of that place and whatever is said about the place is what he has seen in his 1-2 days stay at that place. It was a rushed and shallow piece of work never giving justice to the place he visited or to the reader. I would say Paul Theroux 'The Great Railway Bazaar' would be a better read than this one. Compared to the other works of Bishwanath Ghosh like 'The Gazing Neighbours' and 'The longing Belonging', this was a major let down.

[Aditi Mishra · Rating 1 out of 5]

It has been a long time since I had had travelled in the grand Indian Railways. So, naturally I picked this book up. Junctions such as Jhansi, Itarsi and Shurnur were a major part of my childhood on the long three day journeys from Trivandrum to Gwalior every summer. I too, much like the author, have wondered what lay beyond these platforms.

The excitement of the book soon faded out after the prologue when I realised that I didn't like the author very much. Not only his description of the places were shallow, he seemed genuinely disinterested. Every chapter about a new railway junction beings with his long and arduous struggle to find a hotel, he then proceeds to complain about his surroundings and fall asleep for the rest of the day. In the night, he finds a local bar and gets drunk with the locals. Where is the chai the author promised in the title?
The stories he narrates aren't intriguing and often end at surface level. Sometimes it feels like he is trying to jam random, unconnected stories about a place that fails to give a coherent picture. He roams around in rickshaws looking for people to interview and places to visit but he fails to describe them. It's funny how he has dedicated pages on his struggle to find a hotel room and alcohol but he manages to describe the town he is writing about in two lines. This book feels like a long drawn, unedited diary entry.

[Jashan Singhal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book made me read it. Ghosh travels around those ghost towns of India whose railway stations form the backbone of the Indian Railways such as Mughal Sarai, Jhansi, Itarsi etc. where every train stops but no passenger gets down except maybe for a cup of chai. Throughout my childhood, I had extensively travelled by India railways and this book definitely caught my attention.

This a very poorly researched book, where the author doesn't strike a chord with the readers by his travel writing. His content is very shallow and it seems like he didn't do his homework before visiting these towns. Neither did he explore these towns with the gusto of a penetrating travel writer.

Here and there, he makes some good observations about the banal life of contemporary Indian towns and the people living there, but those remarks are not quite exceptional.

All in all, the book disappointed me.

[Pradnya · Rating 4 out of 5]

All those who have travelled by trains and know the stations they saw but never visited. They remain a mystery to us. The author is on the journey to unravel this mystery and for this he visits all the stations he never got to visit. I can relate to this, there have been stations I got down and felt curious about the towns. I cannot visit them but vicariously I visited all those big junctions mentioned in this book.

I was amazed by the way the author makes friends everywhere he goes. It might one of the mist essential quality of the journalists. The book is rich with anecdotes, and history.
Definitely, one of the nice reads in Indian travelogue section.

[Suhani · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is the first book ever that I failed to complete. I got so bored reading this! In the beginning this book was so interesting. The whole idea of visiting those stations where we get off but never go was good. The author seemed in a very good mood at first but he cannot deliver what the readers anticipated. As I proceeded with this book my boredom increased. The author himself was not that cheerful. He did not seem interested in visiting the small towns. I must accept that this is my first travelogue and I am not aware how they are supposed be, but this one was definitely boring.

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of the book is quite good. The author visits the famous railways junctions in the country such as Jhansi, Mughal Sarai in the North and Gunthkal and Shoranur in the south. Unfortunately the book chronicles random incidents between the author's alcoholic binges.

Which is quite sad as the author writes well and his other books on Chennai and Kolkata are quite good. This however did not work for me.

[Shalabh · Rating 1 out of 5]

shallow.

[Digvijay Singh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author have not done his research properly. He just wanted to stay in luxury hotel, smoke cigarettes and drink whisk.

Utter waste of time and money.

[Raghu Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subject matter of this book always has the danger of making sense only to a small section of readers - those readers who have lived in India at least for a couple of decades before the 1990s, have a love for trains in general, have an interest in the complexity of the Indian Railway network and been resident in one corner of India and had relatives or friends to visit in another far corner. It just so happens that I was one such and so I could simply sail through this book without needing any references. Nondescript railway stations across India like Itarsi, Jhansi, Mughal Sarai, Shoranur, Guntakal and Arakkonam are as familiar as Chennai and Mumbai to me. Prior to the late 1980s, Indian Railways did not run that many direct trains from one far corner of India to another. As a result, if one had to go to places like Gorakhpur from Cochin, one often had to wait long hours in one of these stations to connect to another train that would take them to their destination. I had done my share of these transfers.

Just like the author, I too have often wondered, waiting at Itarsi, looking out of my second class coach window at the emptiness that stared at me beyond the station, as to what this village or town could be all about. In that sense, the author has chosen a nice, off-beat topic to write about. But then, having chosen to travel to all these stations across India, he seems to have done no research at all about any of these wayside stations and the towns appended to them, prior to his departure. As a result, he arrives cold in each station with little idea as to whether there is anything special about them or what to do there after arrival. I would have thought that as a journalist from a reputed national newspaper, he could have searched to see if there are any Facebook / Google groups out of these towns and if so, contacted them prior to arriving there in order to have a much better experience than plopping into the nearest bar and try to chat up other whisky or beer drinkers there for insight. Still, India is India and so long as one can speak the local language - Hindi in this case, mostly - you can still find out some snippet or other of interest and that is what the author does. The result though, is rather tepid because I cannot remember one really interesting experience that stays in my mind.

Apart from being unprepared, author Ghosh is also rather impatient in these towns. Perhaps, if he had spent a few more days in each of these towns, he might have chanced to bump into someone or something interesting. But he finds the boredom of these semi-towns rather unbearable and leaves within two or three days after arrival. Even during those short stays, he strays off the route by going to Varanasi from Mughal Sarai and going as far as Khajuraho from Jhansi. Surely, this is ‘cheating’ and I will have to call ‘foul’ on these travels relating to Varanasi and Khajuraho! They do not belong in this book.

In the town of Guntakal, Ghosh makes a perceptive observation on a societal question. I wish there were more such snippets in the book alongside the liberal sprinkling of all the booze and the broads. He writes about the closure of J.K. Rayon textile mills in Guntakal and the resulting dislocation of the life of its workers as follows:
“...I have always wondered if there would have been trade unions or calls for strikes had this been a woman’s and not a man’s world. Had managements and trade unions been headed by women, I am sure they would have arrived at a mutual compromise during standoffs to ensure that the kitchen fire is kept burning. Women rarely talk big or raise slogans: they are always in touch with what you call ground reality”.

This book can be skipped in favor of the author’s second book, which is on the city of Chennai and is an excellent read.

[Saumya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful and short book which manages to capture the nuances of small towns which have come up around railway junctions. These are places we never go to but pass through during our journey.

This is my second book by Ghosh and as before, it feels like I walked around with him in those by-lanes and experienced them for myself. His power of observation lends a helping hand to the reader’s imagination and understanding. All in all, a good read!

[Janani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever wondered what existed beyond those pallid boards in some of India’s biggest railway junctions? Ever wanted to know about the lives of those who inhabited those towns that were highlighted in bold only in the country’s railway route? If at some point you have pondered over any of these questions, ‘Chai, chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop but Never Get Off’ by Bishwanath Ghosh, is a must read.
Mughal Sarai, Itarsi, Jhansi, Shoranur, Jolarpetai, Arrakonam and Guntakal are familiar towns for a regular traveller. However, they get only a passing reference in our packed travelogue.
Ghosh makes an earnest attempt to extract interesting stories of the people who reside in these towns. And, his efforts haven’t gone waste, as he gives these towns a new identity – remnants of India that was buried in the long and hasty strides we took towards urbanisation and agglomeration.

[Manjri Gopalan · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Chai Chai" is a travel story by Bishwanath Ghosh. What I loved in the book was its Prologue. The prologue is so well written that you would feel nostalgic and your childhood memories would come rushing into your mind. However, as the book progresses, you start losing the interest because of the fact that there is no depth in the narration. You will find many a time, the narration ending abruptly, there is no flow, no story, no consistency. Unfortunately, by the end of the book, I felt let down and disappointed.

[Ashfaq · Rating 1 out of 5]

Inappropriate title, the author has written some rather ordinary experiences of him visiting a very few important junctions in the country, tried hard to make content out of uninteresting things and more than not, over booze at all the places he went. It seems mostly an account of struggle to find hotel rooms at night and booze in the evening which just so happens in some important Junctions of the country. Idea was great at first but didn't held up for too long

[Mohit Sharma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where's the chai?

I know where did Ghosh babu drank whiskey but I don't remember him having chai in this book. Won't recommend this.

[Aditi Varma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 92 Week 52
Chai Chai by Biswanath Ghosh
Rating 2/5

As I near the end of the year, I hope to finish my half read books so I can start my new year afresh, with new books and challenges.

One such book I finished was Chai Chai, a travelogue about a man who travels across India's busiest railway stations to understand the underlying economic, social, cultural, historical fabric. The author is a Bengali journalist who was raised in UP and had lived for a while in Chennai when he wrote the book, and loved travelling around the country, via trains.

The premise was interesting, but the writing was strictly ok. The author talks about a few North indian railway stations like Mughal Sarai and Itarsi, and a few down south.

What I liked was the way he painted the picture of the little towns where these stations were - the people, the places, the culture, the feels. It was reminiscent of the simpler days of 80s and 90s. I also enjoyed knowing hitherto unknown facts about these places.

However, the narrative could have benefitted from less obsession with and description of the author smoking, drinking, and fantasizing about women he encountered, in person or in talk. The writing didn't have much depth.

Overall an okay read, at least it was fast paced and an easy read. Expected more, so kind of disappointed, but those interested to know about India's busiest railway stations may wanna give this a try. Otherwise, skip it.

[Gracelinvidya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Railway junction is where a long distance Indian Railways train would halt for around 5 minutes or so and the hawkers would keep shouting 'Chai Chai', while some of the passengers would get down to stretch their legs, buy magazines, food and of course a hot cup of tea! The hustle and bustle of the railway junction starts right when a train arrives and there are innumerable trains arriving at the junction from almost all parts of the country everyday. The junction is always an intermediate point for most passengers, which provides a break from the monotonous long train journey to the passengers. However, we as passengers hardly think about the life right outside the junction, that is about the town and its people. The author visits the following towns having railway junctions- Mughal Sarai (Uttar Pradesh), Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh), Itarsi (Madhya Pradesh), Guntakal (Andhra Pradesh), Jolarpettai (Tamil Nadu), Arakkonam (Tamil Nadu) and Shoranur (Kerala). The author gets off the train and explores these towns and has written about his experiences. That's the theme of the book. Some of the things mentioned in the book is relatable. The novel- Chai Chai is the first book written by author Bishwanath Ghosh. This book is one time read to get a feel of small towns, its people and railway stations/ junctions.

[Jeevitha Balakrishnan · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an ardent lover of train journey, I expected this book to bring about the essence and culture of the habitat and people in India's remote regions where the train halts and you have no idea what's happening behind the yellow boards! The book lacked in rendering the feel of liveliness one would acquire, travelling around India. Though some snippets made a bit interesting, overall the travelogue lacks depth of feeling and doesn't portray the culture of the people, neither food nor famous landmarks so well.Mostly it disappoints the reader and only the title sounds promising enough than its content.

The author was so desperate to buy himself a whisky at all the places he visited than thinking of writing a very good travelogue.

Nevertheless, the booked failed to quench the readers' curiosity!

[K B Janaki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chai, chai : Travels in places where you stop but never get off - Bishwanath Ghosh


I love the idea of this book. The railway crisscross and the junctions which make the writer speak. But something was missing in this book. He follows a same pattern in the entire book. He goes to a place, finds a hotel, gets a drink and meets someone. He tries to extract stories from the people's mouth. He also sprinkles his childhood memories. He brings a distinction between South India and North India.

What I like:

1. He has tried in hand in explaining the intricates of a city or a place
2. Simple and easy to understand.
3. There are very nice lines which can be used has quote

What I don't like

1. The narration is typical. After reading "The Great Railway Bazaar" the impact of travelogue was more in my head. This didn't fulfil that

[Saritha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ghosh's columns in The Hindu are evocative of the city of Madras and I do look forward to reading his book on the city. But although the idea of this book may sound great on paper, it is by far, one of the most boring travel reads I have come across.

Either the places were boring with nothing more than trivia about various trains passing through. Which they were. Or the places could be evocative of the author's experiences in other places and at other times. Which they were, in the section where he remembers the schoolmate who dropped out of school and when he goes into raptures over wood apples.

But on the whole, the book falls between the stools because it runs low on experience AND emotion.

[Komal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chai Chai - a book with an engrossing title and an equally interesting topic, fails to live up to the expectations built up !

One expects to delve into the world of the small places which are crucial junctions and everyone who has travelled in a train might have come across, but that author has disappointed the readers!

His travelogue is just like a mundane diary entry about the casual encounters that he has at the local bars!
And yes that's it, and nothing more !at each place it is just that he goes to a bar, to find out about the place and he just pens it down!

The book is just a complete let down!

[Vampire Who Baked · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a great book, not a bad book. Entertaining in parts. Too solipsistic overall-- less cultural odyssey across forgotten India, and more "these are all the inconveniences the author had to tolerate in order to write this book". Veers a tad too classist/sexist at times. But otherwise there are parts that are quite funny due to the way it's written, and offers a glimpse into 90s small town India (not in terms of the towns visited in the travelogue, but in terms of the author's hometown reminiscences). Overall, not a bad effort, but I'd rather recommend "Following Fish" or something if you want a fun desi travelogue.