A slow reminiscent smile steals over my face as I walk briskly along the platform, lugging my suitcase. My mind is flooded with memories of the days when the station was still called Madras Central. The memories are so vivid, I can almost smell the tamarind rice my mother used to hand over to me while I sat cross-legged in the window seat with a book on my lap. I marvel at the superpowers with which our mothers and aunts managed to pack and push around a miniature canteen, complete with all the paraphernalia, no matter how short or long the journey. We seem to have always travelled without ever relying on the expectation of any external provision of amenities and to have roamed about like tortoises with our own self-sufficient little habitat strapped right on to our backs. And oh, the food! Lemon rice, chapatis with tomato thokku , idlies with generous coats of molagai podi seeping through their pores - dishes that lasted long and tasted better with time. They were always accom...