A long 48-hour train journey from
Kanpur to Chennai and then, after a brief hiatus there, onward to
Tirunageswaram (near Kumbakonam), was a regular feature of our summer
vacations. Since none of my friends in Kanpur had ever carried out such a long
train journey, I tended to enjoy the trip to the fullest to be able to brag
about it to them on my return.
There was no direct train from
Kanpur to Chennai in those days. We would take a short trip to Jhansi and then
catch a train coming from Delhi en route to Chennai. The stay over at Jhansi
would be as long as 5-6 hours and we would hop from one platform to another to
get full experience of the large and
busy railway station. On the way to Chennai, there were big junctions, a
station with a large turntable to reverse the direction of the engine, the
thick forests and the long tunnels through the expansive Vindhyachal range in
Madhya Pradesh, which would be at the pinnacle of its beauty during the rainy
season. The last attraction would be the long bridge over the Krishna river
just after the Vijayawada railway station. And of course the grand and majestic
Chennai Central where the railway tracks ended – giving us a feeling of
covering the entire length of the country.
Once in our village
Tepperumanallur (quite a tongue twister for my friends), which was just behind
the Tirunageswarm railway station, our lives would be confined to one long street
called Agraharam, with some 70-80 houses, a small market with 5-7 shops, two
temples, an old style ancestral house with a deep well, a large 100-meter long backyard that had a
number of trees and the railway station. In the evenings, of course, we would
take a train to Kumbakonam, which was the next station or would walk down to
Tirunageswarm town, which was about 2 kilometers away and had some very famous
temples, including our Kuladevi – Girigujambal.
A cousin of mine, we called him
Narasu Attan (Narasimhan N), was working as a Station Master for the southern
railways and used to have his duty shift across 3 stations on a roster.
Tirunageswaram was one of the stations, other than Kumbakonam and Darasuram, where
he would have his duty scheduled and we brothers would have a gala time at the
station the whole day.
The day would start around 8:30
AM when all our local friends would take a train for their schools and colleges
in Kumbakonam. The summer vacations ended in early June there unlike in Kanpur
where it extended till early July. We would join them up to the station and
then spend most of the day time observing all the action at the station. There
were two platforms and one direct line for the express trains to pass through.
The signal cabin was just across the platform and based on which lever the
signal man pulled, our friends will predict as to which platform the train
would come to. That was called a ‘Point’ and based on that the loop line would
connect to one platform or the other. Sometimes we would go along the line, up
to the ‘Point’ to see how the track shifted from mail line to the loop line. It
used to be quite exciting to say the least.
The passing through of Cholan
Express was another site that we enjoyed immensely. The signal man was also
responsible for handing over the ‘Key’ – a metallic ball tied to a large ring
made of bamboo shoots. The train would approach at a speed of some 100 KMPH and
this man would stand on a small platform along the third line. The engine
driver will take his one hand out in style and just put that through the large
ring and the metallic ‘key’ would get passed on to the driver. That was his
license to cross the station. And then
Narasu Attan would pick up the phone handle from the cradle of a large
communication unit and announce to the man at the other end in Kumbakonam in
style – ‘TRM Cleared’. TRM was the station code for Tirunageswaram. When it was time for the next train to come,
we would wait for that instrument to ring again, the station master of the
other station would convey some numbers that Attan would note diligently in a
large register, press some levers in that machine that would then drop that
metallic ball. He would then call the signal man sitting outside the room to
take the ball and prepare for the exchange of the ‘key’ through that wooden
ring.
The same action in the night
would be an amazing scene. Many a night, there would be no power supply. The
man would then come up to the raised platform with the ‘Key’ ring in one hand
and a large flambeau in his other hand. The flames of that torch, dancing in
the blowing wind, gave the impression of a phantomic hero standing in the dark.
And then in a flash, the driver of that Tuticorin Express would bring out his
head and the left hand, bend down a little, and just put his hands through the
ring to snatch the ‘Key’ from this signal man, blowing the long whistle all
along, at a breathtaking speed of 100 KMPH. It was a heroic operation that we
never got bored of watching every day.
During the afternoons, when there
were no trains, we would enact the same sequence in our long backyard by making
that ring out of very thin bamboo shoots and attaching a ‘key’ made of very
small coconut buds that had dropped from the coconut tree all over the
backyard. My brother and I would have some fights if I were not allowed the
equal number of opportunities to play the driver role, while he played the
signal man. With no modern electronic gadgets and devices, these vicarious
pleasures made our holidays most enjoyable in that tiny village.
Earlier this week, I got a
message from Kumbakonam that Narasu Attan, who had settled down there post his
retirement some 15-20 years back, had passed away. I had met him in December
last when I visited the place for the divine darshan of my family deity. He was
as affectionate as he had always been. He was preparing for his son’s engagement.
After the death of his wife a few years back, he wanted to complete this one
responsibility of seeing through his son’s marriage. After waiting for covid to
recede, the marriage was finally solemnized a month back. Despite his age, he was at his enthusiastic and
energetic best during the marriage, I am told. But he fell sick immediately
after the marriage and could not recover. The sad news of his demise brought
back all my old childhood memories spent in the village and my amazement at the
well-oiled process of the railway system.
And I imagined a very content Narasu Attan standing in front of that
machine in Kumbakonam and declaring – KMU cleared. RIP Narasu Attan and thanks
for making my childhood vacations so enjoyable and memorable.
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