"...most Indians probably see this as a laudable step toward modern comforts...", a comment from someone who is not an Indian, while I see a few following comments by Indians (seemingly) who fondly reminisced about the experience. Its funny, the conviction that over a billion people of a different country/culture would see the world like you would.

Besides, "modern comforts" are there for the taking if one wants it. One can always travel first class in these trains, where you have multiple tiers to choose from ranging from air conditioned private cabins to A/C car coaches. Otherwise, you can travel the other classes and tiers where you get a chance to explore what is talked about in the article. To each his/her own.

Edit: I think the author is speaking about the experience in the cheapest 2 classes of Indian railways. Here are the fare class codes in Indian Railways [0]. There are at least 6-7 other tiers of fare classes above these.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways_coaching_stock...