ZB AND NE

 

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

17/XII/2024

 

Visiting a railway station always brings out the child in me. Moment, I see steam engines, my heart beats like a train on a track. Those Chuk-Chuk sounds are like lub-dub deep inside the chest. Mind gets flooded with memories and consumed in nostalgia. My favourite ‘Iron Horse’ enchants me no end even today.

 

At the entrance of Jodhpur railway station, we have a ZB class meter gauge engine standing as witness to the years gone by. This old man saw meter gauge turn to broad gauge, steam giving way to Diesel engines which further are on their way out for Electric engines to take their place.

 

However, the passengers and their behaviour has not changed and the rush has not reduced either. The good old ticket window from where we used to buy those cardboard platform tickets has been replaced by an automatic ticket vending machine. Staircases have been replaced with escalators and lifts.

 

A Security person sits at the entrance, forcing you to put your luggage through the scanning machine, however, he has ‘Zarda’ to be rubbed as his priority. He won’t know if it is laddu or a bomb as he hardly looks into the monitor.

 

Rarely does this engine find a ‘ticket collector’, who everyone dreaded, standing at the exit gate. These days there are hardly any unreserved compartments. More than half the train is Air Conditioned. Parcel vans and Rail Mail Coaches have vanished. Generator cars are attached, unlike the good old ‘dynamo days’ when fans and lights would function when the train moved. The brilliance of the bulb increased with the speed of the train and dimmed as the train braked, plunging passengers into darkness if it halted.

 

This engine has seen ‘book stalls’ vanish. The Chai walas now carry big thermos flasks, no more sakroras or earthen cups. Coolies have lost their jobs due to “strollies”. Stations are now vacuum cleaned. Compartments have bio-toilets. Thank God, or else the stench used to be unbearable in times of yore.

 

Food is still the main accompaniment on any rail journey. Though the railways provide packaged food, on long distance trains. Stewards serve you well. One gets a newspaper too. However, one misses buying a paper pack novel or a film magazine. Mobiles have replaced them.

 

The grand old steam engine no longer blows its steaming whistle but hears horns of other engines. Its tender is no longer coaled or watered at the water column. The huff and puff and plumes of smoke are long gone.

 

Announcements are now electronically vocalised, with a very monotonous tone preceding the voice. This poor engine now wonders that the numbers of trains have increased so many folds to destinations beyond its imagination. The engine has no steam left in its steam box to say wow. His hook waits to couple with a bogie and take chug along but alas.

 

The signalling system has changed. The old one which used to dip its tail either up or down now winks at you. The ‘wick oil lamps’ no more need firing and oiling up. There are no pipits and grease guns, which were a must for lubricating the moving parts of our grand old steam engine.

 

Achar (Pickle) is the only thing which has survived this long transition of train travellers. The whiff and aroma from a tiffin when opened, can make anyone feel hungry instantly.

 

While I was deep into imagination, my wife pointed out to a Kite sitting on the clock tower above the railway station entrance. The angle was not perfect, but one could capture them feeding.

 

The pair was probably a mother and child, who were sitting on the steeple of the station’s entrance. It appeared that one had caught something. In all probability it was a Pigeon. The mother fed her child like mom would serve us meals on all train journeys.

 

While we were engrossed in all this, the passenger we were waiting for arrived. It was time to wrap up and head home. I would love to go once again to do a photo shoot and have a conversation between ZB and NE one of these days.

 

ZB has promised NE to tell his stories when he was young, energetic and hooked up with so many of his girlfriends. When will that be? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

 JAI HIND 
©®NOEL ELLIS