Memories of a Bygone Age .....

(Edited version published in 'Whispering Deodars' - Rupa)

The 'Grand Journey' Begins ...

The year is 1956. I am eight years old and the summer vacations are fast approaching. Kanpur is sweltering hot and dusty to boot. The smoke from the hundreds of chimneys dotting the skyline of this ‘Glasgow of India’ covers the sky like a dark pall. My sister and I are anxiously waiting for the day that we will begin the journey that will take us to Kandaghat, that little village nestled in the hills just beyond Solan. This is an annual feature, almost a ritual, though I will be joining for the first time!

Aunts and cousins gather at the railway station (fathers will join later) and soon we are aboard the Kalka Mail for the first leg of our journey. This is the same train - 1UP/2DN - that was introduced in 1903 for carrying the officers and babus of the British Raj on their annual sojourn from Calcutta to the summer capital of the Imperial government, Shimla. Kalka was, and still is, the gateway to Himachal Pradesh. In its location and layout, this town is no different from Dehra Dun (for approaching Mussoorie), Kathgodam (at the base of Nainital) or Siliguri (in the Darjeeling foothills). I guess the uniformity of design is because of the fact that all the tracks were laid by the British, at or about the same time.

We arrive at Kalka, excited and cheerful, early in the morning. The air is cool and anxious mothers begin draping the children in pullovers. A pullover, it is said, is something that mothers make their children put on when they themselves are feeling cold. But pullovers in June? What a story to tell the mates back in school! The poor blokes back in Kanpur are, I expect, down to their vests and shorts right now. As I said, despite the fact that the coolness in the air is, more probably than not, because of the early morning hour, I like to think that it is because of the proximity of the mountains that one can see peeping over the station compound wall.  My oldest and most experienced aunt, Bimla Masi, quickly organises the luggage and the children, in that order, on the platform. Mothers are asked to identify both items, and soon a string of red shirted coolies, engaged after protracted financial negotiations, duly loaded with assorted items of baggage, is wending its way towards the bus stand.

A grand view greets us as we step out of the railway station - passengers pouring out of the station, against a backdrop of the hills, rickshaws and horse drawn tongas lined up, with the drivers calling out for passengers and the general hubbub and excitement of a holiday crowd! Though the bus stand is just a furlong or so up the road, we see many of our co-passengers being borne away in style aboard either a rickshaw or a tonga. Our pleas for a similar ride, however, fall on deaf ears and we trudge along behind our mothers and aunts up the slight gradient leading to the bus stand.  Part of the reason for the walk is past precedent (or tradition) and part is just to save money, although we are told that it is only the ill, old or the infirm who take rickshaws and tongas – we are not in any such category, are we??  So, having been put firmly into place, we soldier on!

Sure enough, within a couple of minutes, we spy a few brightly coloured, but tired looking, buses – Fords and Bedfords mainly. The air is full of cries of the conductors, and their assistants, calling out various destinations and exhorting passengers to board. Quaint names such as Nalagarh, Pinjore, Solan and Subathu assail the ears, and we keep expecting to hear ‘Kandaghat’, but are disappointed. There is excitement and expectation in the air – everybody is keen to be on the first bus out, if nothing else, to escape the plains before the sun really climbs up into the sky. Coolies and bus conductors are busy loading luggage on to the carriers atop the buses and tying it down with thick hemp rope. One by one, the buses load up and move off, but we hang back. It appears we have to wait for a bus belonging to one particular company – for that is the one we always travel by. While we wait for the bus – no time given on the notice board – we while away the time eating ‘Kulche-Chholle’ from one of the numerous carts that line the other side of the road, opposite the bus stand. Though the sun is getting hotter, the breeze is still cool, and the pullovers are no nearer being pulled off tousled heads. 

                                                                                                       ...... to be continued