Embodying the Mobilities of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway

Abstract

This paper develops a critical understanding of one of the key railway journeys in India, namely, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR). Using the mobilities paradigm, this paper offers a cultural analysis of the ‘journey’ of the DHR: how it is instrumental in making travel experiences and how it is itself constituted through different embodied travel practices and performances. Different modes of travel involve contrasting experiences, performances and affordances. In this context, this paper explores the ‘hybrid geographies’ of the DHR as involving a complex relationality between the traveller and the mode of travel: how it incorporates different aspects of mobilities. What is significant is the relative slowness of the DHR and the ways in which it communicates a different sense of time, which also leads to a blurring between practices of walking and travelling on the train itself. The train itself is also conceptualised as playful, as it engages with the places it passes through. Drawing upon recent literature on landscape and visuality, the DHR is further explored in terms of its movement through and engagement with the landscapes of the Himalayas.

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