Today is my Dad's birthday. One of his many eccentricities was an unexplained love for the Indian Railways and Trains. He could look at any train, anywhere in the country and identify its name and destination, and how many AC coaches it had and so on.
We could be anywhere - dusty Rajasthan, crisp cold Kalka, humid Howrah or the Sangam bridge near Shorab Hall - his face would break into that devilish smile on seeing a train and he would tell us all about it. Up, Down, next stop. Is it running late (which was mostly the case back in those days) or was it early.
Remember those thick as telephone directory annual Railway Timetable books that were the only source of information on train timings in the nineties? For some reason he would spend hours, I kid you not - his strong shoulders slouched over the book , gray eyes unblinking - fingers going through the current page like it held million dollar secrets.
Yes, and whenever we were at the railway station he would pour over the reservation charts even after identifying our seats. Those dot matrix printouts with all those notations gave him as much joy as the medu vada available at Nizamudin Jn while we waited to board the Goa Express.
Once when we were travelling, his head moving with the rhythmic beat of the coach - he confided to me and my sister that he had always wanted to be a locomotive driver before joining the Fauj and even when serving it. Then he looked out at the distance. A man with an unfulfilled dream.
Whenever he spoke of The Scindhia School , Old Monk peg in his right hand and spectacles dangling on this nose, his beautiful eyes would twinkle and he would speak of the famous silver train at Jai Vilas Gwalior's dinning table that he would get to see when the school kids would be invited to the palace and the wonders it held.
Last year, this not so train fascinated writer attended his father's school reunion. I went inside the palace with his classmates - all grandfathers now, all eagerly showing their wives the famous chandeliers while I hung around the dinning table looking at a silver train. And i couldnt help but feel the choke in my throat. I got it then. I saw the beauty he must have seen all those decades ago in that grand hall in that miniature train. Maybe his life long love affair started then? Or was it triggered by that train set which my grandfather had brought for the children in England. Strange are the ways of our hearts. Who knows what sets them off.
Trains. I know his mighty heart, before it ran out of steam at the end, hummed chugchug chug chug for all his years.
Today is my Dad's birthday. Today is also the Indian Railways birthday. He was born 100 years to the day after the first train made its way out on that historic run. 16th April. 1853. Sahib Sindh Sultan
16th April 1953. Sahib, Sindh, Sultan and Ullhas.
Isn't it just amazing how the world works to patterns and coincidences and our lives go round and round like wheels on a Train.
1 comment:
This was emotional. Thanks for sharing.
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