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Railsong: A Novel
'Magnificent' KAMILA SHAMSIE
'Majestic yet profoundly tender' MEGHA MAJUMDAR
A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India.
In a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay.
Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her, she becomes an unlikely a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open -sometimes guilelessly - to her nation's vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is a powerful portrait of grit, optimism and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.
'Majestic yet profoundly tender' MEGHA MAJUMDAR
A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India.
In a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay.
Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her, she becomes an unlikely a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open -sometimes guilelessly - to her nation's vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is a powerful portrait of grit, optimism and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.
412 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 17, 2026
About the author
Rahul Bhattacharya
17 books56 followersRahul Bhattacharya is a writer, journalist and editor. His first novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care, won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Pundits from Pakistan, his first book, was a Wisden Cricketer top ten cricket book of all time. He was born in Bombay and lives in Delhi with his wife and two daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
November 27, 2025
I’ll never forget Charu Chitol.
December 8, 2025
I remember loving The Sly Company Of People Who Care, and I remember feeling that there was something special about that young writer. It took Bhattacharya thirteen years to write another book...and I was lucky enough this time to get an autographed copy, courtesy a friend.
This one is a very different novel. But it is special too, in its own way. It is not everyday that a man writes convincingly from a woman's point of view. But Charulata Chitol, as the heart of this book, is lovely. She grows up in a fictional railway town, daughter of a Bihari mother and a Bengali father, who in the idealism of the India of the fifties and sixties, decides to give up his high caste surname for the indeterminate one of Chitol. That idealism stays with Charu through her life, as she runs away to Bombay looking for freedom and independence, as she encounters the bureaucracy of a railway job, as she tries to work through the complications of an inter-state marriage. Through her life we see the life of a nation, as Bhattacharya weaves in, ever so subtly, the events that shaped India in the latter half of the twentieth century. And also through her life, we see the change in women - as they begin to work outside their homes, negotiating an autonomy society is loathe to grant them. But the magical core of the book is the Indian Railways - its ordinary employees, the clerks and the sweepers and the station masters and the ticket inspectors. Charu, as she travels the trains as a welfare officer, meets them all and sees in them the complex richness that is India. Bhattacharya writes a love song to this behemoth - as it chugs along, inspite of all its problems, carrying a billion Indians across the land, irrespective of their caste or religion or language.
I don't know if I loved this as much as I loved The Sly Company, but Bhattacharya tells a good tale, slow-moving in parts, but heart-warming and rewarding as a whole.
A recommend.
This one is a very different novel. But it is special too, in its own way. It is not everyday that a man writes convincingly from a woman's point of view. But Charulata Chitol, as the heart of this book, is lovely. She grows up in a fictional railway town, daughter of a Bihari mother and a Bengali father, who in the idealism of the India of the fifties and sixties, decides to give up his high caste surname for the indeterminate one of Chitol. That idealism stays with Charu through her life, as she runs away to Bombay looking for freedom and independence, as she encounters the bureaucracy of a railway job, as she tries to work through the complications of an inter-state marriage. Through her life we see the life of a nation, as Bhattacharya weaves in, ever so subtly, the events that shaped India in the latter half of the twentieth century. And also through her life, we see the change in women - as they begin to work outside their homes, negotiating an autonomy society is loathe to grant them. But the magical core of the book is the Indian Railways - its ordinary employees, the clerks and the sweepers and the station masters and the ticket inspectors. Charu, as she travels the trains as a welfare officer, meets them all and sees in them the complex richness that is India. Bhattacharya writes a love song to this behemoth - as it chugs along, inspite of all its problems, carrying a billion Indians across the land, irrespective of their caste or religion or language.
I don't know if I loved this as much as I loved The Sly Company, but Bhattacharya tells a good tale, slow-moving in parts, but heart-warming and rewarding as a whole.
A recommend.
October 13, 2026
Railsong takes place in a fictional town of Bhombalpur in the post-independence India of 1950s-1960s, and later in Bombay (80s). It is told through the life of Charulata Chitol/Miss Chitol/Charu, daughter of a Bihari mother and a Bengali father. Her father, who worked in the railways, inspired by the idealism of a united India of the fifties and sixties, gives up his high caste surname for the indeterminate ‘Chitol’. This has consequences on his children (especially when Charu comes of marriageable age) because the immediate society has not progressed in their thinking with the idealists.
We follow Charu through her hatred for domestic drudgery, her escape to Bombay as a teenager for college education and for financial independence (a path she carves out on her own), her place as a woman in the family and larger society. Charu is required to be a responsible child (her mother died when she was young), perhaps more so than her brothers. We follow her adulthood experiences, love, inter-caste marriage, and her employment at the Indian Railways. Charu’s life is inextricably linked to the rise of the railway network in India and she lives through her personal battles as India moves to into the new world.
“Yet watching the trains pull in and out, the crissing and crossing, thousands of people making their way, their hearts in transit, their languages on the go, their origin stories, mythologies and migrations and conquests possibly in stark conflict with those of another, the gods and heroes of one the demons and villains of another, she became vividly sentimental and felt sensationally alive.”
I really loved following the life of a woman in post-Independence era, told in great detail. Life surely was hard! "To boys, difficult circumstances appeared to be events, hurdles that might challenge them. Whenever she read an autobiography or a profile of a successful man, she was struck by this. For girls, circumstances were continuous.” There is a scene in Bombay when Charu needs to get sanitary napkins and she is asked if there’s any male in the house who can source one for her. To read this in 2026 is a blow to the bubble we surround ourselves with. Finding good accommodation as a single woman is hard (hard even today), money is scant, workplaces prefer men. Charu also makes funny (awkward?) observations (like how Charu wonders why men scratch their bum at workplaces and whether they do the same in Japan and West Germany, “the two most diligent nations in the world”). She remarks on the bureaucratic hurdles on getting anything done in India and also about the paperwork involved.
Railsong is a tricky book to recommend. The writing is wonderful, the character sketch of Mis Chitol is one of the best I have read in recent times. A new reader to the book must remember that this is not written for the Western audience; there is no spoon feeding or romanticization. You read through pages and pages of stark reality—poverty, systemic collapse, women’s place in a patriarchal world, bureaucratic burdens that crush one’s soul, the lack of basic amenities (presented as facts, not romanticized or presented as poverty porn). The read was very slow, both because of the pacing and also because it was mentally taxing so I needed to take frequent breaks. Every 100 pages felt like 300 to me.
I found Railsong to be a very difficult read, one that left me drained, even very sad, because it finally makes me confront the reality of living in a newly Independent country, where the law and service sectors are still in the making and dreams are sky high. It makes me acknowledge the privilege I come with, reading about a difficult time period in Indian history, on the warmth of an armchair. The novel is uncomfortable but also enlightening about the sheer work and personal sacrifice of many nameless people, that went on to build this railway network and also build the nation. I quote Ambar Sahil Chatterjee's GR review of the idea of India—“a nation built on seemingly impossible ideals, appearing to teeter on the brink of collapse but rescued by the quiet sacrifices and inspiring resolve of the many nameless people who refuse to give up on this place so many of us call home.”—which is what Railsong presents.
There was a discussion on socials about why the book isn’t finding itself on more (Western) award lists. Perhaps this is written for a reader who can put some work in, who isn’t afraid to take on books that demand their time, comfort and attention. Perhaps this is the merit of the novel, and also what some readers around the world might call a demerit. I recommend picking it up.
Audiobook read by read by Sudha Bhuchar.
Thank you to Libro FM for the audiobook. All opinions are my own.
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July 1, 2026
This book is one of those books that the time you put into it directly correlates to how much you enjoy it. This book took me 3 months to read because, hallelujah, Rahul Bhattacharya did not cater to the American English reader. He never goes into great explanations of the cultural references, apparel, events, religious beliefs, music, or language. He would use Bengali phrases and never translate it. It was absolutely refreshing. I had to be an active reader and was constantly researching. I learned SO much. I loved the poetic way Bhattacharya wrote as the reader followed Charu through her life. It is a slower paced book, but you get to know Charu so well and want to cheer her on at every stage.
November 15, 2025
As slow-moving as the titular trains winding through the book, with little of the promised song. Although Charu was an interesting and complex character, her mundane adventures and the ponderous writing style that relayed them failed to engage.
August 26, 2026
I picked up this book for the most frivolous of reasons: the author, Rahul Bhattacharya, has the same last name as me. Little did I know I would find a kindred spirit in Charulata.
I loved Charu almost immediately. Her name certainly helped; Charulata is one of my favorite Tagore characters. But what really drew me to her was her fierce determination to live life on her own terms. Again and again, society tries to tell her what a woman’s life should look like, how she should behave, when she should marry, what she should tolerate, how much of herself she should surrender to keep everyone else comfortable. Charu keeps pushing back.
What I especially appreciated is that she never feels like a manufactured “strong female character.” She is stubborn, funny, impulsive, practical, loving, irritated, selfish at times, generous at others. In other words, she feels like a real person. I am not always convinced by men writing women, particularly women whose stories center on independence and the constraints placed on them, but Bhattacharya writes Charu’s life remarkably well. He understands that the pressure women face is not always one dramatic act of oppression. Often it is the accumulation of small expectations: adjust, compromise, accommodate, make yourself easier for everyone else.
That may be one of the reasons I connected with Charu so strongly. She does not want to become somebody’s obedient daughter, somebody’s accommodating wife, or even somebody’s symbol of female liberation. She simply insists that her life belongs to her.
But Railsong is much bigger than Charu’s story. Through her life and her work with the Indian Railways, Bhattacharya tells a story of post-Independence India itself. The book moves through drought, labor movements, the Emergency, political assassinations, caste and tribal identity, economic change, religious division, and the rise of Hindu nationalism. What I loved is that he rarely reduces any of these histories to a simple set of heroes and villains. Different communities carry different memories. One person’s hero may be another person’s villain. One event may mean liberation to one group and loss to another.
And yet everyone is still traveling through the same country. That is where the railway becomes such a powerful metaphor. India is filled with different religions, languages, regions, castes, communities, histories, and mythologies, and Bhattacharya lets all of them occupy the same tracks without pretending their differences do not matter.
I also appreciated how much the novel resists reducing India to the stereotypes that can sometimes dominate English-language fiction about the country. Poverty, patriarchy, caste, religion, and inequality are all present, but they are never treated as something strange or exotic, or described from the outside with pity or condescension. The country is allowed to be modern and ancient, idealistic and hypocritical, generous and cruel, deeply divided and somehow still connected.
The same is true of the people in the novel. Bengali. Bihari. Gujarati. Brahmin. Adivasi. Hindu. Muslim. Woman. Widow. Wife. The categories matter. They shape how people are treated and what opportunities they have, but Bhattacharya never lets the category become the whole person.
That idea connected for me with one of the earliest images in the novel: little Charu wanting to “count people.” Later, India counts people through censuses and bureaucracies by caste, tribe, religion, sex, occupation, marital status. But one of the things this book understands is that counting people is not the same thing as actually knowing them. Every railway file contains a life. Every statistic contains a story. And every person traveling through India carries something that cannot be captured neatly in a box on a form.
I started Railsong because I saw my own last name on the cover. I finished it thinking about identity, history, women’s autonomy, belonging, and the complicated promise of India itself.
And most of all, I finished it loving Charu.
I loved Charu almost immediately. Her name certainly helped; Charulata is one of my favorite Tagore characters. But what really drew me to her was her fierce determination to live life on her own terms. Again and again, society tries to tell her what a woman’s life should look like, how she should behave, when she should marry, what she should tolerate, how much of herself she should surrender to keep everyone else comfortable. Charu keeps pushing back.
What I especially appreciated is that she never feels like a manufactured “strong female character.” She is stubborn, funny, impulsive, practical, loving, irritated, selfish at times, generous at others. In other words, she feels like a real person. I am not always convinced by men writing women, particularly women whose stories center on independence and the constraints placed on them, but Bhattacharya writes Charu’s life remarkably well. He understands that the pressure women face is not always one dramatic act of oppression. Often it is the accumulation of small expectations: adjust, compromise, accommodate, make yourself easier for everyone else.
That may be one of the reasons I connected with Charu so strongly. She does not want to become somebody’s obedient daughter, somebody’s accommodating wife, or even somebody’s symbol of female liberation. She simply insists that her life belongs to her.
But Railsong is much bigger than Charu’s story. Through her life and her work with the Indian Railways, Bhattacharya tells a story of post-Independence India itself. The book moves through drought, labor movements, the Emergency, political assassinations, caste and tribal identity, economic change, religious division, and the rise of Hindu nationalism. What I loved is that he rarely reduces any of these histories to a simple set of heroes and villains. Different communities carry different memories. One person’s hero may be another person’s villain. One event may mean liberation to one group and loss to another.
And yet everyone is still traveling through the same country. That is where the railway becomes such a powerful metaphor. India is filled with different religions, languages, regions, castes, communities, histories, and mythologies, and Bhattacharya lets all of them occupy the same tracks without pretending their differences do not matter.
I also appreciated how much the novel resists reducing India to the stereotypes that can sometimes dominate English-language fiction about the country. Poverty, patriarchy, caste, religion, and inequality are all present, but they are never treated as something strange or exotic, or described from the outside with pity or condescension. The country is allowed to be modern and ancient, idealistic and hypocritical, generous and cruel, deeply divided and somehow still connected.
The same is true of the people in the novel. Bengali. Bihari. Gujarati. Brahmin. Adivasi. Hindu. Muslim. Woman. Widow. Wife. The categories matter. They shape how people are treated and what opportunities they have, but Bhattacharya never lets the category become the whole person.
That idea connected for me with one of the earliest images in the novel: little Charu wanting to “count people.” Later, India counts people through censuses and bureaucracies by caste, tribe, religion, sex, occupation, marital status. But one of the things this book understands is that counting people is not the same thing as actually knowing them. Every railway file contains a life. Every statistic contains a story. And every person traveling through India carries something that cannot be captured neatly in a box on a form.
I started Railsong because I saw my own last name on the cover. I finished it thinking about identity, history, women’s autonomy, belonging, and the complicated promise of India itself.
And most of all, I finished it loving Charu.
October 10, 2026
"Smt Chitol considered the not having one's heart in something a most valuable instinct"
After reading Railsong, Smt Chitol feels like a close, personal friend of mine. We grew up together, I understand her worldview very intimately, and am immensely fond of her. She has taught me how to be brave by being attuned to your heart, even if it means plunging into the unknown. She is curious, funny, irreverent, kind, generous, and thoughtful, and I was emotional saying goodbye to her at the end of the book.
Railsong left me deeply impressed by Rahul Bhattacharya's ability to capture thirty years of Charulata's life in one novel, without compromising on the richness of both her inner and outer world. We spent several years inside Charu's head, and slowly experienced her become more mature, lose the innocence of childhood, experience tragedy and wonder and fear and joy. Every perspective she had, and every decision she made, fit perfectly in the larger tapestry of her character and life.
Mr Bhattacharya was also able to construct a vivid picture of India, without getting lost in the idiosyncracies and complexities of this large and diverse country. Set in the backdrop of three decades of tumultuous but significant political developments and nation-building, the novel was also a love letter to the Indian Railways. Woven into the story were hundreds of Indians, with their unique Indianisms, the gargantuan and labyrinthine bureaucracy, and the interplay of class, caste, gender, religion, language and geography. The book put up a mirror to India, and brought into sharp relief everything that makes the country what it is.
My grandfather worked in the Indian Railways his whole life, and he spent his last few years before retirement working in the Bombay Division. I have heard countless stories from my parents and grandparents of the years spent in Bombay, in a government-provided flat right next to Nariman Point. Perhaps that's also one reason this book felt like stepping back in time, and reliving, vicariously, my own family's personal history.
After reading Railsong, Smt Chitol feels like a close, personal friend of mine. We grew up together, I understand her worldview very intimately, and am immensely fond of her. She has taught me how to be brave by being attuned to your heart, even if it means plunging into the unknown. She is curious, funny, irreverent, kind, generous, and thoughtful, and I was emotional saying goodbye to her at the end of the book.
Railsong left me deeply impressed by Rahul Bhattacharya's ability to capture thirty years of Charulata's life in one novel, without compromising on the richness of both her inner and outer world. We spent several years inside Charu's head, and slowly experienced her become more mature, lose the innocence of childhood, experience tragedy and wonder and fear and joy. Every perspective she had, and every decision she made, fit perfectly in the larger tapestry of her character and life.
Mr Bhattacharya was also able to construct a vivid picture of India, without getting lost in the idiosyncracies and complexities of this large and diverse country. Set in the backdrop of three decades of tumultuous but significant political developments and nation-building, the novel was also a love letter to the Indian Railways. Woven into the story were hundreds of Indians, with their unique Indianisms, the gargantuan and labyrinthine bureaucracy, and the interplay of class, caste, gender, religion, language and geography. The book put up a mirror to India, and brought into sharp relief everything that makes the country what it is.
My grandfather worked in the Indian Railways his whole life, and he spent his last few years before retirement working in the Bombay Division. I have heard countless stories from my parents and grandparents of the years spent in Bombay, in a government-provided flat right next to Nariman Point. Perhaps that's also one reason this book felt like stepping back in time, and reliving, vicariously, my own family's personal history.
August 18, 2026
3.5 stars.
The main character is Charu Chittol; daughter of a railway man, she grew up in the housing quarters of the railway workers families, with her siblings and grandmother. But her mother passed at a young age and Charu was very much her father’s daughter, showing interest in locomotives and the entire organization of the Indian railways.
This was post independence India, a country charging ahead with new ideas despite old traditions. Girls were seeking education and Charu set her sights high, aspiring independence and adventure. She moves to Bombay, enrolls in the Railways as a junior clerk, makes friends, has liaisons, enters the Welfare Department and travels to villages and hamlets to carry out her duties.
The political landscape changes and along with it, girls like Charu test the boundaries of traditional roles set for them for generations. The writer gives us a glimpse of how the railways shaped India and the role of ordinary working men and women who served it daily.
The main character is Charu Chittol; daughter of a railway man, she grew up in the housing quarters of the railway workers families, with her siblings and grandmother. But her mother passed at a young age and Charu was very much her father’s daughter, showing interest in locomotives and the entire organization of the Indian railways.
This was post independence India, a country charging ahead with new ideas despite old traditions. Girls were seeking education and Charu set her sights high, aspiring independence and adventure. She moves to Bombay, enrolls in the Railways as a junior clerk, makes friends, has liaisons, enters the Welfare Department and travels to villages and hamlets to carry out her duties.
The political landscape changes and along with it, girls like Charu test the boundaries of traditional roles set for them for generations. The writer gives us a glimpse of how the railways shaped India and the role of ordinary working men and women who served it daily.
August 14, 2026
A brilliant book showing the growth of an individual and the events of the nation through a critical institution - the Indian railways.
Lyrical prose, beautiful observations and many vignettes that use banality to illustrate profound thoughts. This book was a great read - the last part could have been paced a bit better
Lyrical prose, beautiful observations and many vignettes that use banality to illustrate profound thoughts. This book was a great read - the last part could have been paced a bit better
April 3, 2026
Outstanding book. Was hooked throughout. Beautiful prose, felt like I was in Bhombalphur in the 50s and Mumbai in the 80s. Also, an empathetic and beautiful perspective on the Indian railways. Ms Chitol, what a character
September 6, 2026
A full five stars! A rating that has become very rare for me over the past few years. But I absolutely loved "Railsong," and it earned every star. The narrative is really dense and full and absolutely teeming with life. And it doesn't pander to the English reader. I spent a lot of time looking up the meanings of words and historical incidents in India to better understand what was happening. Somehow that work made it even more worthwhile and precious to me. I was truly sucked into this epic story of one young woman's quest to live life on her own terms. Beautiful. Heartening. Sad and funny and wise and honest and tragic and hopeful, all at the same time. My favorite kind of book!
Description (from Goodreads):
Charu is such a wonderful character. For one thing, she is a reader!! As a child, she gravitates to fiction, which opens her up to an interest in all human stories and, I believe, helps make her into the empathetic woman she becomes. I am not always convinced by women written by male authors, but Charu felt believable. Her thoughts about marriage, in-laws, miscarriage, work as a woman - all of them rang true to me. And she is so beautifully imperfect. I deeply related to her throughout: from awkward childhood, to a young adulthood full of uncertainties about purpose and love, to her experiences as a fully-mature woman with a passion for the many diverse peoples of her very complicated country.
And I really appreciated learning more about India from the 1960s - 1990s. The Ram Rath Yatra movement (Hindu nationalism) and ongoing tension between Hindu and Muslim Indians was eye-opening. I loved when big-hearted Charu took a stand against her in-laws and their barely-disguised racism. It was also fascinating learning more about some of the lesser-known, indigenous tribes in India and some of the caste issues that Charu had to deal with due to being the daughter of an inter-caste marriage and from entering into an inter-caste marriage herself.
"Railsong" feels like an epic, even with the page count clocking in at only around 400. For the four days I was reading it, I lived and breathed India - particularly life in Bhombalphur and Mumbai. I googled so much! I got lost down several rabbit holes. Overall, I had a delightful time. "Railsong" beautifully manages that delicate balance of being realistic (and sometimes quite sad) without completely losing hope about the world and the people in it. Charu will keep counting people. Maybe I can too.
Some of my favorite quotes that I highlighted:
"She was thrilled by the clarifications because they coincided with the period she became truly cognizant of the miracle of books. How fulfilling to jettison people for words! For in those words were people more real than real people. With them she could laugh and cry, at them she could state, she could observe them without judgement or even comprehension. They expected nothing of her, indeed gave her so much of themselves she felt accountable towards them."
"To boys, difficult circumstances appeared to be events, hurdles that might challenge them. Whenever she read an autobiography or a profile of a successful man, she was struck by this. For girls, circumstances were continuous. This is why generating energy was not easy, for there was not always a defined hurdle that you could build up speed towards and jump over. Where was the space?"
"The wanton digging of male bums had become such a familiar workplace sight to Miss Chitol that, were you to pluck her out of that office and plant her elsewhere, say Japan or West Germany, the two most diligent nations in the world, she would at once marvel, "Do people not dig their bums here?"
"It occurred to her that perhaps no absurdity fitted so well the absurdity of life and its termination as paperwork."
"He sometimes stroked the moustache, sometimes parted it, sometimes ruffled or assuaged it; at all times he was alert to its needs the way one is to a tempermental pet. His care was of such a calibre that Smt Chitol felt totally secure in his hands."
"She recorded Konkani and Tamil and Sindhi, Telegu and Tulu, one Kodagu, one Dogri, an Arabic, a Nepali, one Kurukh, one Halabi. Of merchants, merchant-navy sailors, gastroenterologists, watchmen with living quarters, child servants and the wheelchair bound, she recorded educational attainments, natures of work, places of last residence, reasons for migration, from ever-married women the number of children ever born alive. All these lives, their variety and volume, to become one number."
"The heart of a person was not one thing or the other. Its grievances, its smartnesses, its vacancies and welfares were not one thing or the other. The heart cannot be columnised. There is no bigger mystery in the whole world, Notun Dida used to say, than the human heart."
"Vicissitudes were everywhere, every single where."
"Asked about the renunciate life, [an itinerant Buddhist nun] laughed that the most difficult renunciation of all is the barrier between oneself and others. On this point Smt Chitol reflected the entire time and long afterwards. The simplicity of the idea shocked her. Unattainably true. Of extraordinary beauty. It gave her impetus to keep on."
"Yet watching the trains pull in and out, the crissing and crossing, thousands of people making their way, their hearts in transit, their languages on the go, their origin stories, mythologies and migrations and conquests possibly in stark conflict with those of another, the gods and heroes of one the demons and villains of another, she became vividly sentimental and felt sensationally alive."
Description (from Goodreads):
In a newly independent India charged with national vigor, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay.
Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her, she becomes an unlikely hero: a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open—sometimes guilelessly—to her nation’s vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is a powerful portrait of grit, optimism and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.
Charu is such a wonderful character. For one thing, she is a reader!! As a child, she gravitates to fiction, which opens her up to an interest in all human stories and, I believe, helps make her into the empathetic woman she becomes. I am not always convinced by women written by male authors, but Charu felt believable. Her thoughts about marriage, in-laws, miscarriage, work as a woman - all of them rang true to me. And she is so beautifully imperfect. I deeply related to her throughout: from awkward childhood, to a young adulthood full of uncertainties about purpose and love, to her experiences as a fully-mature woman with a passion for the many diverse peoples of her very complicated country.
And I really appreciated learning more about India from the 1960s - 1990s. The Ram Rath Yatra movement (Hindu nationalism) and ongoing tension between Hindu and Muslim Indians was eye-opening. I loved when big-hearted Charu took a stand against her in-laws and their barely-disguised racism. It was also fascinating learning more about some of the lesser-known, indigenous tribes in India and some of the caste issues that Charu had to deal with due to being the daughter of an inter-caste marriage and from entering into an inter-caste marriage herself.
"Railsong" feels like an epic, even with the page count clocking in at only around 400. For the four days I was reading it, I lived and breathed India - particularly life in Bhombalphur and Mumbai. I googled so much! I got lost down several rabbit holes. Overall, I had a delightful time. "Railsong" beautifully manages that delicate balance of being realistic (and sometimes quite sad) without completely losing hope about the world and the people in it. Charu will keep counting people. Maybe I can too.
Some of my favorite quotes that I highlighted:
"She was thrilled by the clarifications because they coincided with the period she became truly cognizant of the miracle of books. How fulfilling to jettison people for words! For in those words were people more real than real people. With them she could laugh and cry, at them she could state, she could observe them without judgement or even comprehension. They expected nothing of her, indeed gave her so much of themselves she felt accountable towards them."
"To boys, difficult circumstances appeared to be events, hurdles that might challenge them. Whenever she read an autobiography or a profile of a successful man, she was struck by this. For girls, circumstances were continuous. This is why generating energy was not easy, for there was not always a defined hurdle that you could build up speed towards and jump over. Where was the space?"
"The wanton digging of male bums had become such a familiar workplace sight to Miss Chitol that, were you to pluck her out of that office and plant her elsewhere, say Japan or West Germany, the two most diligent nations in the world, she would at once marvel, "Do people not dig their bums here?"
"It occurred to her that perhaps no absurdity fitted so well the absurdity of life and its termination as paperwork."
"He sometimes stroked the moustache, sometimes parted it, sometimes ruffled or assuaged it; at all times he was alert to its needs the way one is to a tempermental pet. His care was of such a calibre that Smt Chitol felt totally secure in his hands."
"She recorded Konkani and Tamil and Sindhi, Telegu and Tulu, one Kodagu, one Dogri, an Arabic, a Nepali, one Kurukh, one Halabi. Of merchants, merchant-navy sailors, gastroenterologists, watchmen with living quarters, child servants and the wheelchair bound, she recorded educational attainments, natures of work, places of last residence, reasons for migration, from ever-married women the number of children ever born alive. All these lives, their variety and volume, to become one number."
"The heart of a person was not one thing or the other. Its grievances, its smartnesses, its vacancies and welfares were not one thing or the other. The heart cannot be columnised. There is no bigger mystery in the whole world, Notun Dida used to say, than the human heart."
"Vicissitudes were everywhere, every single where."
"Asked about the renunciate life, [an itinerant Buddhist nun] laughed that the most difficult renunciation of all is the barrier between oneself and others. On this point Smt Chitol reflected the entire time and long afterwards. The simplicity of the idea shocked her. Unattainably true. Of extraordinary beauty. It gave her impetus to keep on."
"Yet watching the trains pull in and out, the crissing and crossing, thousands of people making their way, their hearts in transit, their languages on the go, their origin stories, mythologies and migrations and conquests possibly in stark conflict with those of another, the gods and heroes of one the demons and villains of another, she became vividly sentimental and felt sensationally alive."
April 28, 2026
3.5
In Railsong, I came across one of the best well-written female characters I've come across in recent years, Charulata Chitol. The spirited woman who, when confronted with the stifling banality of domestic norms and routines, leaves her relatively liberal home as a young girl to make a life of her own. Living and striving at a time when the young republic was undergoing political and social changes that found reverberations in everyday politics and personal relationships, she holds onto her commitment to individual freedom and assertion of her free will. Growing from a young girl who "loved to count people", to a railway welfare inspector who refuses people to be stories and lives lost in ageing files, Charu shows a nuanced acknowledgement of human dignity and empathy. Charu isn't flawless. Instead, she is admirably real in her relentlessness- towards herself and everything.
In Railsong, I came across one of the best well-written female characters I've come across in recent years, Charulata Chitol. The spirited woman who, when confronted with the stifling banality of domestic norms and routines, leaves her relatively liberal home as a young girl to make a life of her own. Living and striving at a time when the young republic was undergoing political and social changes that found reverberations in everyday politics and personal relationships, she holds onto her commitment to individual freedom and assertion of her free will. Growing from a young girl who "loved to count people", to a railway welfare inspector who refuses people to be stories and lives lost in ageing files, Charu shows a nuanced acknowledgement of human dignity and empathy. Charu isn't flawless. Instead, she is admirably real in her relentlessness- towards herself and everything.
June 21, 2026
Remember that marvellous novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care (2011) which won The Hindu Literary Prize in 2011 and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2012? I read it for the Shadow Jury when it was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize (2011), but it was also longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2013. We've had to wait 15 years for a successor, but Rahul Bhattacharya has done it again with his new novel Railsong. And while the two novels couldn't be more different — Railsong has a female central protagonist for a start — once again it's about the coming-of-age for an individual and the coming-of-age of a decolonised country.
The novel begins in Charu's childhood in an unconventional family in a railway town called Bhombalpur. Her father Animesh Kumar Chitol works in the railway workshop as a junior employee on a wage barely adequate for the upkeep of the extended family: his wife and three children Dhrubo, Charulata (Charul) and Anando; his widowed mother Nistarini Debi; and the servants. These inadequate pay rates for vast numbers of railway employees erupt into nationwide strikes, which were the catalyst for police surveillance, violence between strikers and scabs, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's controversial Emergency (1975-77). India's new and fragile democracy was curtailed by cancelled elections and the suspension of civil liberties.
These and other political events form a backdrop to Charu's life, as does the Census which takes place in years ending in '1', tracing the rise of India's population from 439 million in 1961 to 846 million in 1991 when Charu herself is a census collector. But it is Charu's life that is the backbone of the story.
The tragedy of partition is well within living memory but Charu's parents had adopted the values of newly independent India, marrying for love despite parental objections, not bothering about religion, and changing their Brahmin family name to Chitol which designates no caste. This renunciation of a caste-surname in favour of a neutral one places the beginning of the novel in the 1950s because India's 1950 Constitution banned discrimination based on caste and abolished 'untouchability'.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/06/21/r...
The novel begins in Charu's childhood in an unconventional family in a railway town called Bhombalpur. Her father Animesh Kumar Chitol works in the railway workshop as a junior employee on a wage barely adequate for the upkeep of the extended family: his wife and three children Dhrubo, Charulata (Charul) and Anando; his widowed mother Nistarini Debi; and the servants. These inadequate pay rates for vast numbers of railway employees erupt into nationwide strikes, which were the catalyst for police surveillance, violence between strikers and scabs, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's controversial Emergency (1975-77). India's new and fragile democracy was curtailed by cancelled elections and the suspension of civil liberties.
These and other political events form a backdrop to Charu's life, as does the Census which takes place in years ending in '1', tracing the rise of India's population from 439 million in 1961 to 846 million in 1991 when Charu herself is a census collector. But it is Charu's life that is the backbone of the story.
The tragedy of partition is well within living memory but Charu's parents had adopted the values of newly independent India, marrying for love despite parental objections, not bothering about religion, and changing their Brahmin family name to Chitol which designates no caste. This renunciation of a caste-surname in favour of a neutral one places the beginning of the novel in the 1950s because India's 1950 Constitution banned discrimination based on caste and abolished 'untouchability'.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/06/21/r...
September 19, 2026
This is quite an old fashioned book in some ways: a mid-length (400-odd-page), fairly understated realist account without ostentatious stylistic or formal conceits. It follows the life of a woman, Charu, who is the daughter of a railway mechanic, and herself becomes an administrator in the Indian Railways. Set largely in Bhombalpur -- a fictional junction town in Bihar -- and Mumbai, the terrain of the book is the belt across north-central India, from Kolkata to Mumbai. Charu, the daughter of a Bengali father and Bihari mother, makes her career in the Central Zone of the railway network.
The book wagers that you see much of the life of a country from the perspective of the railway and its workers, and for the most part, this is borne out. In the first half of the book, we see the labour movements that preceded the Emergency from the perspective of railway porters and mechanics. Charu's family goes undercover when her father - a progressive Brahmin - is betrayed by a colleague, but the hierarchies within the labour movement, and the class and caste tensions, are clearly drawn. At the other end of the book, we see Charu employed as a welfare inspector, making voyages from Mumbai into central India, trying to track the lives and stories of the bereaved and litigious so that some kind of record can be kept and some kind of compensation can be paid to the bereaved or abused.
It is a slow, careful, thoughtful book. It rarely if ever shows off, but is consistently engaging and illuminating. There are moments when I felt the attempts at interiority were a bit forced, but on the whole I thought it was beautifully observed. My favourite part of the book was the last section, when Charu was travelling as a welfare officer. The pen portraits of the railway officials were brilliantly vivid, very funny, and on occasion very sad (the monologue of the widow in Hyderabad was extraordinary, worth the price of admission alone). It felt like this was really where the book's heart lay, and I wondered if it could have been given more space than the strict 100 pages it was allotted. Nonetheless, this was a beautiful and rewarding novel.
The book wagers that you see much of the life of a country from the perspective of the railway and its workers, and for the most part, this is borne out. In the first half of the book, we see the labour movements that preceded the Emergency from the perspective of railway porters and mechanics. Charu's family goes undercover when her father - a progressive Brahmin - is betrayed by a colleague, but the hierarchies within the labour movement, and the class and caste tensions, are clearly drawn. At the other end of the book, we see Charu employed as a welfare inspector, making voyages from Mumbai into central India, trying to track the lives and stories of the bereaved and litigious so that some kind of record can be kept and some kind of compensation can be paid to the bereaved or abused.
It is a slow, careful, thoughtful book. It rarely if ever shows off, but is consistently engaging and illuminating. There are moments when I felt the attempts at interiority were a bit forced, but on the whole I thought it was beautifully observed. My favourite part of the book was the last section, when Charu was travelling as a welfare officer. The pen portraits of the railway officials were brilliantly vivid, very funny, and on occasion very sad (the monologue of the widow in Hyderabad was extraordinary, worth the price of admission alone). It felt like this was really where the book's heart lay, and I wondered if it could have been given more space than the strict 100 pages it was allotted. Nonetheless, this was a beautiful and rewarding novel.
August 9, 2026
‘She did not need to ask, “Is this what love is?” What use a question whose answer cannot be words?’
In stunningly evocative prose, Rahul Bhattacharya's “Railsong” charts the eventful life of Charulata Chitol from her difficult childhood in a railway town in the 1960s to her momentous escape to Bombay as a teenager and the varied experiences of adulthood, both fraught and fulfilling, that await her.
Charu is a fully realized, complex character. Her life is inextricably linked with the Indian Railways, where she later finds employment. Between the choices she must make to survive the labyrinthine workings (and organized chaos) of the railway system and the many personal dilemmas that hound her, we are able to witness the transformations sweeping across the country in the second half of the 20th century.
The novel's somewhat fragmentary structure and meditative pace might not be to everyone's taste. And I, for one, did find the ending rather abrupt. But there is so much to savour here: from the psychological acuity that renders a diverse array of characters utterly plausible to the often terrifying, often hilarious glimpses into how bureaucracies operate (or, more often, malfunction). Most of all, however, inhabiting this novel prompts one to ruminate on what it really means to be part of this sprawling, contrarian, shape-shifting country with all its myriad problems and unrealized potential.
In fact, in the wake of the recent student protests (and as we approach India's 79th Independence Day), it has felt particularly poignant and pertinent to reflect on the idea of India: a nation built on seemingly impossible ideals, appearing to teeter on the brink of collapse but rescued by the quiet sacrifices and inspiring resolve of the many nameless people who refuse to give up on this place so many of us call home.
In stunningly evocative prose, Rahul Bhattacharya's “Railsong” charts the eventful life of Charulata Chitol from her difficult childhood in a railway town in the 1960s to her momentous escape to Bombay as a teenager and the varied experiences of adulthood, both fraught and fulfilling, that await her.
Charu is a fully realized, complex character. Her life is inextricably linked with the Indian Railways, where she later finds employment. Between the choices she must make to survive the labyrinthine workings (and organized chaos) of the railway system and the many personal dilemmas that hound her, we are able to witness the transformations sweeping across the country in the second half of the 20th century.
The novel's somewhat fragmentary structure and meditative pace might not be to everyone's taste. And I, for one, did find the ending rather abrupt. But there is so much to savour here: from the psychological acuity that renders a diverse array of characters utterly plausible to the often terrifying, often hilarious glimpses into how bureaucracies operate (or, more often, malfunction). Most of all, however, inhabiting this novel prompts one to ruminate on what it really means to be part of this sprawling, contrarian, shape-shifting country with all its myriad problems and unrealized potential.
In fact, in the wake of the recent student protests (and as we approach India's 79th Independence Day), it has felt particularly poignant and pertinent to reflect on the idea of India: a nation built on seemingly impossible ideals, appearing to teeter on the brink of collapse but rescued by the quiet sacrifices and inspiring resolve of the many nameless people who refuse to give up on this place so many of us call home.
March 2, 2026
Railsong opens in the fictional town of Bhombalpur in the state of Bihar, India at the time of the 1961 census when Charulata (Charu) Chitol, the child of a mixed caste marriage, is three years old. Her mother dies a few years later and Charu and her two brothers are raised by their railway worker/political activist father.
As a 16 year-old searching for freedom and independence, Charu flees on a cross-country train to Bombay where she lives with maternal relatives for a time while attending college before finding work in a shoe store and moving to a women's hostel. Eventually she secures a position with the Indian Railways where she is known as Miss Chitol and builds a career beginning as a junior clerk and advancing through the system to become a welfare inspector investigating worker's claims and fraud.
Spanning three decades (1961-92), Railsong is a heartfelt coming of age story about a complex young woman in a changing India in the latter half of the 20th century. Charu's struggle for personal independence takes place against a backdrop of social and political upheaval in modern day India highlighting the inequality that exists both between castes and within the patriarchal society. Through Charu we observe the changing role of women in India's workforce and the importance of Indian Railways as an employer. I enjoyed learning more about the history and geography of the country and Charu is a memorable character. Railsong is an interesting and enjoyable story although I did find it to be slow moving and the prose a bit awkward at times.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
As a 16 year-old searching for freedom and independence, Charu flees on a cross-country train to Bombay where she lives with maternal relatives for a time while attending college before finding work in a shoe store and moving to a women's hostel. Eventually she secures a position with the Indian Railways where she is known as Miss Chitol and builds a career beginning as a junior clerk and advancing through the system to become a welfare inspector investigating worker's claims and fraud.
Spanning three decades (1961-92), Railsong is a heartfelt coming of age story about a complex young woman in a changing India in the latter half of the 20th century. Charu's struggle for personal independence takes place against a backdrop of social and political upheaval in modern day India highlighting the inequality that exists both between castes and within the patriarchal society. Through Charu we observe the changing role of women in India's workforce and the importance of Indian Railways as an employer. I enjoyed learning more about the history and geography of the country and Charu is a memorable character. Railsong is an interesting and enjoyable story although I did find it to be slow moving and the prose a bit awkward at times.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Read
September 23, 2026Loved this take on historical fiction - you can see all the big events and changes in the background as the story focuses on one ordinary woman and all the ordinary people she encounters through her jobs and homes and family. There are so many side characters and one-off characters in this thing that it should feel sprawling and impossible to keep track of, but it works quite beautifully with the theme of the census and the way all those names and stories add up to a picture of a growing, changing nation. And I hesitate to call Charu "ordinary" because in many ways she is the bold face of the modern women's movement, declaring her independence and her self-determination against traditional expectations - but it's a reminder that a "movement" is made up of a lot of people just living their lives.
This book does some cool things with language and narration, too, and I wish I understood them better, but I much prefer the feeling of not being talked down to and over-explained at. I will give the heads up to non-Indian readers that there's a ton of untranslated and unexplained words and cultural/historical references in here. Which was one of my favorite things about the reading experience - it felt so immersive and not patronizing to me as an American - but it did demand concentration and effort, so, highly recommended when you're in the right mood for a slower pace and a bit of a mental workout. Once I settled into the rhythm of Bhattacharya's prose style, the bits that went over my head stopped mattering.
Big and epic but small and focused, about ordinary lives that make history - full of contradictions the same way a nation is.
This book does some cool things with language and narration, too, and I wish I understood them better, but I much prefer the feeling of not being talked down to and over-explained at. I will give the heads up to non-Indian readers that there's a ton of untranslated and unexplained words and cultural/historical references in here. Which was one of my favorite things about the reading experience - it felt so immersive and not patronizing to me as an American - but it did demand concentration and effort, so, highly recommended when you're in the right mood for a slower pace and a bit of a mental workout. Once I settled into the rhythm of Bhattacharya's prose style, the bits that went over my head stopped mattering.
Big and epic but small and focused, about ordinary lives that make history - full of contradictions the same way a nation is.
May 29, 2026
Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya is a breathtaking, elegiac novel that traces modern India through the life of Charulata Chitol, a motherless railway worker's daughter who flees to Bombay at 16 after a brutal rail strike and carves out an independent life as a railway clerk and welfare officer.
Spanning decades from the 1960s to the early 1990s, the story follows Charu as she navigates patriarchy, bureaucracy, and her own heart while India transforms from steam to diesel and post-independence optimism fades into disillusionment. What makes this novel so powerful is how it captures the contradiction of a nation charging forward with vigour while human costs pile up and women are expected to "dissolve like sugar in milk".
Charu refuses to shrink and that refusal becomes the heartbeat of the book, and along the way this book tells the story of an arguably modern country but hardly a decent one. This is the central ache of Railsong, where the railways connect people and places but also reveal the everyday cruelty underneath the national narrative.
This is one of those novels that needs to be read slowly, and savoured.
Spanning decades from the 1960s to the early 1990s, the story follows Charu as she navigates patriarchy, bureaucracy, and her own heart while India transforms from steam to diesel and post-independence optimism fades into disillusionment. What makes this novel so powerful is how it captures the contradiction of a nation charging forward with vigour while human costs pile up and women are expected to "dissolve like sugar in milk".
Charu refuses to shrink and that refusal becomes the heartbeat of the book, and along the way this book tells the story of an arguably modern country but hardly a decent one. This is the central ache of Railsong, where the railways connect people and places but also reveal the everyday cruelty underneath the national narrative.
This is one of those novels that needs to be read slowly, and savoured.
September 5, 2026
Incredible. Charulata Chitol is an endlessly interesting woman and the prose is gorgeous. It's the coming-of-age story of Miss Chitol but also in the background is the coming of age of a newly independent India. I will be thinking about this book for a while (also thank you for pulling me out of a reading slump)
September 25, 2026
Expresses the immense beauty that can be found in a common, even lonely, life, and I love love loved it. Charu works in the seemingly mundane yet labyrinthine maze of railway bureaucracy but finds so much purpose in it. Love. And she gets glasses as the story goes on rather than gets rid of them which is so rare.
July 30, 2026
I could not find a way through the cultural setting of this story and did not care for it. The translation was awkward with many original language terms left intact, making it a hard read. For me, the underlying story was not enough to lift it over the linguistic barriers.
Read
November 16, 2025DNF. This just isn't working for me. I'm bored.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Sublime
September 23, 2026
How to become best friends with Miss Chitol
Did Not Finish
September 27, 2026This is fine, but I'm not getting sucked in.
October 6, 2026
Charulata Chitol is everywoman, utterly singular and one of the most delightful protagonists ever. The complex tale of her quiet, determined striving to define herself in a life entwined with the Indian Railways, itself the nervous system of a country defining itself post-independence, is told with empathy and affection. Pellucid prose framing scenes from the smallest towns to bustling Bombay neighbourhoods, inhabited by a cast of characters so vivid you can see, hear and smell them, all set against the backdrop of India from independence to the razing of the Babri masjid.
January 6, 2026
Read it twice, a quick read through the second time. But Charulata Chitol is a heroine in the truest sense of the word.
Although it’s a 4.5 for me because as beautiful as the story is, the awkward clunkyness of the prose in some parts really starts getting to you.
Although it’s a 4.5 for me because as beautiful as the story is, the awkward clunkyness of the prose in some parts really starts getting to you.
April 4, 2026
Railsong gave me a much needed template to think about patriotic feelings.
March 17, 2026
tender, beautiful, highly self aware.
you will remember the protagonist as intimately as one knows one own self and their negotiations with the world.
you will remember the protagonist as intimately as one knows one own self and their negotiations with the world.
August 3, 2026
“Palti kar Dene ka” going to take a long time to think about Miss Chitol <3
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