It was such a wonderful feeling to be on a long distance train after so long. Enjoyed every moment of it. Duronto is a great train to travel. This train to Delhi from Pune has new coaches which meant that it does not carry the previous railway minister's paintings on it. What a relief ! Thank God that Shri. Suresh Prabhu, the present railway minister does not paint. Putting one's paintings as the paint scheme for rail coaches is another form of narcissism which we need to guard against.

I got down at Vadodara to have a look at the locomotive. It was a WAP-7 electric locomotive. Saw the loco drivers change their duties at Vadodara. Two train drivers joined duty at Vadodara as a replacement to the pair who steered the train from Pune to Vadodara.

Trains like Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto go all out to pamper the passengers with food, snacks and beverages throughout the journey. As I enjoyed the journey and the views from the large windows, I had the company of two sadhvis and three ladies going out on a group tour to Delhi, Agra, Mathura, Haridwar and Rishikesh. They were such a contrast. One of the sadhvi did not eat outside food, so she chose not to eat anything served on the train. These ladies grabbed all the contents of the food for the sadhvi and put it in their buffer stock. As time passed and the elderly sadhvi of 85 years started singing bhajans, the other ladies got up one by one and touched her feet. There is so much of latent spirituality that exists in most of us. The satsang continued with the sadhvi singing and telling tales from mythology.

The atmosphere in our compartment was friendly as is on the trains in India. By now, the ladies had started sharing their family details with the sadhvi. One of them even asked her if she could see her hand and tell her the future. The sadhvi politely declined and mentioned that her guru had asked her not to do that.