Supriya's Banter
Platform Ticket: The Untold Stories of People Who Make Train Travel Possible
Author: Sangeetha Vallat
Publisher: Penguin eBury Press (17 March 2025)
Language: English
Paperback: 288 pages
During college days, I found myself on a railway platform umpteen times. Though I am not too proud of the nuisance we created for the railways as clueless, foolhardy students, it made for some memorable times. The action-packed, spirited platforms always intrigued me. They were sometimes bustling with life, sometimes swamped in darkness, but never quiet.
I remember my attention flitting from the chatting passengers, hollering vendors, and to the coolies lugging baggage that seemed to be more than their own weight. But to be honest, I never gave much thought to the drab, grim-looking ticket counters or the people manning them.
This is why Platform Ticket is a rare revelation.
Sangeetha, a former Indian Railways employee, takes us backstage where we witness stories that are raw, hilarious, exhausting and deeply moving.
She opens the book with a cliffhanger, which instantly grabs you. With her, we journey deep into the underbelly of Indian train stations: right from bustling ones to far-flung, remote regions where the only companions of a railway employee are animals and sorghum fields.
The backdrop may seem mundane, but it is extraordinary if you look a little closer — a series of South Indian railway stations from the 1990s and early 2000s, depicted in varied colours. Sangeetha turns the setting into a stage brimming with drama: overnight shifts, ticketing chaos, homesick clerks, gambling assistants, public outbursts, power cuts, and sometimes, even death.
Her writing is rich and descriptive. You can almost see the characters come alive in graphic detail. You can smell the hot chai, relish the steam unfurling out of hot fritters, hear the clack of typewriters, and feel the fatigue of clerks hunched over counters at an ungodly hour.
You get to see the gradual transformation of Sangeetha as the plot advances. She morphs from a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed rookie to a gutsy, confident professional, juggling tough passengers, outdated systems, and leering eyes with practised ease.
The railway ecosystem is deeply intriguing, and wandering through it with an insider like Sangeetha to show you the twists and trails is both exciting and deeply satisfying. She brings back nostalgia and then some. The narrative feels authentic, often messy, but always full of empathy and honesty. Powerful stories and fascinating anecdotes, tucked carefully between the lines, go a long way to hook the reader.
Many times, the book felt like my very own ticket to a wooden bench at the far end of a platform. Scenes kept changing across years and seasons, trains kept coming and going, while I lounged around, tuned into the lively banter of an old friend.
A potent, deeply relatable memoir that deserves a slow, thoughtful read. Trust me, it offers sights you’ve never seen before.
And I promise, once you’ve read it, you’ll never look at a ticket counter—or the person behind it—the same way again.
****
