SYMPHONY OF TRAINS

I have always had a great fascination for trains. I have always had a great fascination for uncrowded railway stations platforms of small towns.. I have always had a great fascination for those earlier-era station masters of small stations who stood at attention, dressed in a black uniform, and kept waving a green flag as a whole train, including the window where I sat, swept past them leaving the station behind until it disappeared at the horizon !

As a child I often used to walk down with my little sister to the railway station of our town. It had a very long, wide and glistening platform no.1 and this platform had the town’s best books-and-magazines stall.

We loved children’s books and magazines. Tripathi jee, the Always-Smiling-Ticket-Collector at the main entrance gate knew every school-going child who visited the AH Wheelers’ book stall there. So we never ever purchased a platform ticket and always returned his smile! And an interesting thing about my childhood was that, as we entered the main platform, we were overwhelmed by the ‘blissful aroma’ of fresh books and magazines that came wafting from the book-stall two hundred yards away! A child has an awesome smelling power. Of my earliest days, I remember being aware of the presence of my mother or father in the room with my eyes shut !

A train journey from Delhi to the south in a first class lower berth has always been fascinating to me. If you want to know about the moghul Emperor Babar, you can easily know about him by reading the history text-books. But to know him inside-out you have got to read TUZUK-E-BABARI ! Train travel, First class lower berth, from Delhi to the south was always as fascinating an experience to me as reading TUZUK -E-BABARI. In one you know the real Babar, in another the real India.

From the window of the moving train the constantly changing scenerio has been ever so fascinating! And no one in those days missed a glass of the delicious ITARSI STATION milk, the purest tastiest milk of good old days (not any more though!).

Things have completely changed now. We have lost a way of life, acquired another. Gone are the days when time moved very leisurely, when one had time for a long chat with the neighbour at the wicket gate outside, when children played together outside in the fresh air.

Satellite T.V. and internet has drastically changed the society. It has changed the way we interact socially. We have no time for others now. I see young friends sitting around a restaurant table with each one busy with their Cell Phones ! Today ‘games’ are not played in the open but on the laptop. Today ‘ginger bread’ is not a bread nor is ‘ ice cream sandwich’ a food item ! The younger generation do not talk to each other except on cell phones! I can feel Orwell smiling in the grave ! He only mis-timed the title of his famous “1984 ” by a few decades.

Times may have changed but trains still keep moving along the railway line which is half a mile from where I live. In the stillness of the night when the city sleeps I still clearly hear TATAK . TAKK . .TATAK. . .TAKK . TATAK . .TAKK. . as trains roll along the railway track..’. It is a symphony to my ears! I know that it will never ever change- ” For men may come and men may go but I shall go on for ever ”

(the photographs,courtesy wikipedia,are for illustrative purpope only)

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