From Communist Manifesto to Manorama, Types of books Indians read while travelling in Trains!

Books are deeply personal things. Each of us forms unique bonds with the characters we read about, relate to storylines and personalities in different ways and enjoy all sorts of genres from crime to romance, gothic to fantasy.

Whether you love to read books like me or you’re somewhere in the middle or you’re a complete moron who thinks reading is such a waste of time (seriously you guys are the worst!) we all have at some point have gone through the notion of reading something to either keep us entertain, enlighten or just for the sake of doing it.

There is a place where everyone becomes a reader, whether they do it or not in their life, but this particular place is where you can see everyone is reading something. And, that place is none other than our Indian trains. You can see every passenger in their respective classes is reading something. If you think about it closely you will realise that every class passengers have their distinct taste in books.

How reader changes in train classes:

First Class

As it is the highest class of travel the Indian Railways has to offer and unsurprisingly the costliest as well, so you can rarely find some middle-class person here. Often used by merchants and high-society class who somehow didn’t get a flight ticket, here you can find books and magazines like Business Today, Karl Marks, Galileo and others.

Second Class

The class who tried to be a first class traveller but at the last moment book the 2-AC ticket because it is cheaper and ‘Features to same hi hai’ mentality, Sheldon Brooks, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and others like them are a top priority for the reading of this class.

Third Class

Also, knows as the ‘First class’ for the middle class, here the passengers are mostly into, well the term is ‘Easy reading’ and we can find passengers reading books from authors like Chetan Bhagat, Robin Sharma, Deepak Chopra, Shiv Khera, Osho and others.

Sleeper Class:

Sleeper Class is the class the majority of reserved passengers travel, and the majority of the coaches in a regular overnight train are likely to be Sleeper Class coaches. There are no privacy curtains or reading lights, and as the coaches aren’t insulated from the outside environment, they can get dusty, not to mention hot or cold depending on the outside temperature. Sleeper Class coaches can sometimes get slightly crowded during the day with short-distance passengers. Then again, it’s so cheap and that’s the reason you will find magazines like Filmfare, Cricket Samrat, Nanhe Samrat and others because after reading it works greatly as a hand fan too!

Unreserved:

Now we indulge into the dark territory, As the name suggests, you do not need a reservation to board this coach – you just buy a ticket and hop on. And, it’s as overcrowded as hell (I never been there but I heard stories too); you can find books like ‘Premika Ka Badla’, ‘Manchahi Ladki Pataye’, ‘Karant mare goriya’ and ‘30 dino me Doctor kaise bane.’