Recession brings on strange justifications; a visit to the mall is a boring indulgence and cooking a stroganoff (y’all are invited) at home is far more worthwhile than a dinner at the fancy restaurant. Entertainment for the children acquires educational aspirations and we all packed off for a visit to the ‘Rail museum’ yesterday. We get off the car and rush to buy the entrance tickets but there is a horde of school girls in serpentine queues waiting. Dressed neatly in their uniforms, the queue threatens to disband itself with excitement. Ah the joy of licking ice lollies while waiting, the teachers capping the energy with their stern glances, some of us munching on obviously unhygienic bhel puri- others postponing impulsive pleasures- rationing money for a glorious end to an exhilarating day, the giggling among friends..
I enter and on a track that ends abruptly a grand decrepit train has been embalmed …awaits a second glance. My children run away fearing that the train will start and the lonely train is desolate.. its time has gone long ago. Its only fault is that it is mediocre, at one time it was a regular motley of engine and bogies, of passengers and officials, of economics and emotions, passion and boredom, commitment and joy all onward to their destinations – some to home and others to pastures that seemed greener. I move on ..but glance back, does it give me a wizened smile?
Centre stage, where stars jostle for space..There’s a grand saloon ; a dusty signage claims it was used by Prince of Wales (Edward VII) while he did his tour of India . Did Royalty get rickety or is it just a sleight? Did he sit on this white leather sofa drinking tea while commenting on the deplorable state of the triabalistic Indians or did he soak in the landscapes, the toiling white clad farmers and the cotton fields in the black soiled Deccan plateau? Did they come to revere him at the next station ? What about the Princess ? Where was she …charmed by their strange ways or was she home where her Ayah fanned her and allowed her lover the surreptitious visit. Was the lover as skilled? Or more?
There is a steam engine; have I become so old that my early childhood companion now stands in a museum? The excitement of a 2 night train journey, the visits to the grandparents, my mom’s joy at meeting her father and sister after a year, me reading all the grown up books of my grown up cousins, all of us going for a treat visit to the Rose Garden. My mother stealing away 2 more days by staying on with her father incurring my Daadi’s wrath. But we’ve barely started- Dad waves us goodbye. Water campers, a huge food basket laden with milk bound parathas and aloo mutter subzee, the dirty toilets , the strangers who become instant food offerers and bedfellas..I love the window, I can gaze out the whole day at the dirt, filth, naked bathers, wondering where Gabbar Singh was hiding in the Chambal mud dunes..the steam engine chugging away, whistling its presence, our arrival at New Delhi Railway station and our journey back in 2 months, blackened sooted faces, wondering who the new class teacher was going to be , Agra ka petha and hijras ( my college friend sliming away from giving them money by saying that ‘we are only students’, the dressed up hijra clapped and moved on- was it so simple? All those years of furtively handing them a 5 rupee note….) The Dhaund station where the train would turn back reneging on its promise to take us onward but miraculously reach us to the intended destinations. The hand pump at Dhaund, me scrubbing my face with the travelling soaps, the cool breeze of Pune welcoming us home.
There is the Fairy Queen..bringing its memories of Deccan Queen. The delectable mince cutlets, the office goers catching up on their sleep, the more ordinary bringing forth a foldable table, engrossing themselves in never ending rounds of playing cards, the familiar waiters, the fancy dining car, the Parsi kulfi still ticking the taste buds alive. Old world charm and contemporary fashion, intermingling to lend a unique snobbery to the DQ regulars.
The toy train. The kids want to take a joy ride and so do I. College trip , some 30 odd students make the best of last few days at freedom, from Kalka to Dharampur. Gola- stout and blue track suited new college star, the recipient of calls from all 4 IIMs, the cynosure feeling cocky, feeling exalted gets off the train striving for another accomplishment that will prove his superiority -promise to catch it running. We egging him on (GOLA GOLA..GOLA) and then Gola experiences failure staring at him. Chain pulling, the TT ticking us off, envious all of us getting our petty revenge, GOLA learns from failure ?. Chail and the first ever snowflakes on my eye lashes, the RD Burman songs which have become a soul companion, the purani jeans song playing again and again and again, silence and tears in the rooms, empty promises to be friends forever. The snow fight with the locals..
Maharaja of Mysore ’s saloon..capable of running on broad and meter gauge. Only Maharajas could afford a battery of slaves who would physically lift the bogey to shift it, THE Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer- still! The coal loaders, the coolies, the black suited grim ever greedy TTs, the attendants all saluting, guaranteeing a seat for a few bucks, the guard with his signals, still the final authority ..how many people ?
The delightful Rail museum has the skull of an elephant, the poor thing was on its way in its own territory when it caused a train to derail. The skull, along with an untidy collection of crockery, the cutlery, the clocks , the lamps, the metal passes, all testimony to 150 years of history.
The mono rail, the Maharaja of Patiala, the toy model trains, the throng of people jostling for space, the romance of train journeys, the serenity of passing landscapes’, the Indian cacophony at its best on platforms, the instant bonding or dislike, the fierce attachments to ‘my space’, complete nonchalance for respect for others, our lack of basic hygiene, the blankness in the eyes with few aspirations for tomorrow , the reliance on karma, .. where is it more typified than at this pulsating entity.. where reflections whirl past, where freedom struggles love stories have borne fruit… I chug ahead, hoping my children someday experience this romance.
