City Landmark – Lodhi Colony Railway Station, Central Delhi
Where time stops.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
The railway station’s façade is tiny, cute, toy-like, comprising of two windows and a short flight of staircase. The foyer inside is dusty, littered with heaps of dry leaves. A part of the wall looks discoloured, as if dampened by the monsoon. A black panel is painted over with a series of place-names, some of which are misspelled: “Barar Square, Shivaji Bridge, Tilak Bridge, Narayana Vihar, Shakur Basti, Daya Basti, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Rohtak, Sadar Bazar, Patel Nagar, Lodhi Colony, Nangloi, Bahadurgarh, Gurgaon, Tughalkabad.”
No ticket to any destination is being sold at the moment. A dusty brown curtain has screened off the ticket counter’s long window.
This afternoon, Lodhi Colony railway station is as silent as a grave.
Further inside, the platform is empty except for an elderly man sitting motionless on a bench, his shirt is off, lying crumpled on his lap. The man is staring blankly at the facing platform, also empty.
Suddenly, sounds of somebody’s steps. A young man in tracking suit enters. He is not a train passenger, he clarifies, explaining that he is heading to jog in a neighbourhood park on the other side of the station. “DMUs stop here but they will come in the evening,” he says, casually jumping down on the tracks, crossing over to the other platform—even though the station does have a foot-over bridge. He soon disappears from view.
Minutes pass. Nothing stirs.
A door is slightly ajar, opening into a room. It flaps to one side without the creaking sound one might expect with such a door. Inside, more of the same dust and silence. A chair is turned upside down. A 2022 calendar is hanging on the wall. A brown curtain is drawn against a long window. Something seems familiar. Of course! This room is the other side of the ticket counter that was encountered in the foyer; this must be the ticket clerk’s seat.
Now a rumbling sound tears through the station. A maal gaadi rushes along. It isn’t stopping, or even slowing down. As if the railway station means nothing to it. The goods train is too long. Finally, the whole of it is gone. Silence re-enters.
Minutes pass. Nothing stirs.
On exiting, one turns to re-look at the station. In our furiously changing megapolis, the old landmarks are being replaced by the new. Will this station building last?
Next station is… never mind
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