Last week, I took a double-decker train to Surat. As soon as I stepped into Mumbai Central station, I was assailed by nostalgia — and that distinctive Indian Railway smell of metal, sweat, sizzling oil and adventure.

Settling into the scruffy, once-aqua seat, I realised with shock that I hadn’t been in a train for ages. My children had rarely experienced the joys of clambering on the top bunk and pretending to be Tarzan; of meditative days spent gazing at fields and lonely villages; of brushing their teeth to the rhythm and jostle of the train. Saddest of all, they had never understood the magic of railway meals.

That was certainly not the case with other passengers in this crowded double-decker.

Even before the train began its first tentative chuggga-chugg, the coachload of travelling epicures got busy. The two businessmen behind me started discussing the relative merits of veg pulao and veg biryani. While the family sitting around me sighed with happy anticipation and started delving into a bulging plastic bag filled to the brim with goodies. They began their repast with vada pavs, flaky pooris and a plastic bag full of peanuts — all washed down with an endless stream of Fanta. After a small hiatus, they had coffee and tea with biscuits. Then at Vapi they bought drippy ice-creams and at Valsad they acquired a mountain of sandwiches.

Around Navsari, the parents and two teenage daughters began the all-important discussion. What to have for dinner — veg pulao or veg biryani. They were still debating this when I got off the train at Surat.

Impressed though I was by their elastic tummies, I was not entirely surprised. There’s something about our great railway bazaar that spurs foodies to new heights. The most cautious will risk missing their train as they hop off at a 30-second-halt station in search of the perfect chai. The most health-conscious souls will gobble oily bhajiyas wrapped in squares of newspaper. The finickiest fine-dining types will admit to a fondness for the peppery, scalding tomato soup served on the Rajdhani or the sabudana vadas on the Deccan Queen.

When we were children, train journeys were an important part of every summer holiday. And food was an important part of every train journey. The excitement started a couple of days before the trip, when a massive plastic basket appeared in the kitchen. Gradually this would be filled with plates, cutlery, napkins and an assortment of train food. A stack of chapatis. Pillows of pav. An embarrassment of boiled eggs. A vast quantity of dry keema, cooked with vinegar. Sometimes fried chicken or cutlets, contributed by the magnificent Karim who reigned over my granny’s house.

It seemed like an inordinate amount of food for four people on a two-day journey. But that never stopped us from waiting for the lassi at Amritsar, or the oranges at Nagpur. And we weren’t the only ones.

Everyone in the second-class sleeper compartment was well stocked with theplas and curd rice. But as the trains approached legendary stations like Karjat and Ujjain, a sudden urgency filled the compartment.

Mild men, who had otherwise spent the journey dozing, acquired a hunter-gatherer mien and stood at the door with a fistful of notes. The moment the train slowed down, these determined souls flung themselves onto the platform, lunged at the hawkers standing along the railway station and returned triumphantly with drippy parcels, a millisecond before the train pulled out of the station.

My father, who had spent many years criss-crossing the country as a typewriter salesman, had an encyclopedic knowledge about railway station fare. If it was Karjat, it had to be batata wada with just the right sprinkling of crimson, garlicky chutney. If it was Ujjain, it had to be poha topped with crunchy sev. Chhole bhature in Jalandhar. Hot vada in Maddur. At Neral we stocked up on jambul , and at Lonavla we binged on chikki .

Mangaluru was famous for egg biryani, and Hyderabad and Kurudvadi for chicken biryani. Certain stations for samosas and others for chicken cutlet.

So deeply were these foodie formulae etched in my mind that years later, as a newbie journalist, when I had to change trains at Kurudvadi at 3 am, I combed the sleepy station for chicken biryani. I got only bewildered stares for my effort.

Thinking of the motichoor laddoos at Allahabad and the little pots of rabri sold on platforms in north India, the heaped baskets of “farm fresh” bananas and cucumbers on tiny railway stations in the middle of nowhere, I’m feeling positively cross. And convinced that I’ll never be able to look another cellophane-flavoured airline meal in the face again.

Shabnam Minwalla is a journalist and the author of The Strange Haunting of Model High School

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