The Places behind Railway Junctions
I’ve started reading Chai, Chai by Bishwanath Ghosh. In this book, he talks about his visits to major railway junctions in India — places where the main business seems to be changing trains to get to a destination to which there is no direct route. Unlike most passengers, Ghosh decides to step outside the railway station to explore these towns. His first stop is Mughalsarai, and it starts out deliciously — so reminiscent of the small towns I’ve grown up in, and of trips we’ve taken in the pre-Internet years.
When we went on temple trips, there was little planning except purchasing tickets to and from the town. Arriving there, we would get into an auto and find a clean, affordable hotel not too far from the station or the temple. A quick shower, then off to the temple at dawn (usually), where the smoky haziness of the inner chambers, the dark walls, and the heady fragrance of incense mingled with the scent of fresh flowers and tulsi conspired to create a sense of mystery. At this hour, a slight hunger also started gnawing at our insides in anticipation of prasadam or a breakfast of pongal-vadai served on banana leaves at a restaurant. Srirangam, Kukke Subrahmanya, Shirdi, Sringeri…so many towns and temples! Gods appealed to, we returned home.
Travel has changed dramatically now. You book train or bus tickets in advance; no need to plead with the TTE. You often know in advance where you are staying. When G. and I went to Thripunithura, we needed our room for only half-a-day. We told our hosts the previous evening that we wanted breakfast the same day, and not the next, as was usually the case with people who stayed the night. However, we were setting off for Trichur that evening — old-school, no bookings — and so, when we arrived at our hosts’, we were greeted with a hot, filling breakfast of idi appam and stew, steamed bananas, and tea: fortification for a long, rainy day.
But I digress. Thripunithura isn’t a junction, much less a station people barely get off at. Even with its quaint, tiny platform, it seems to attract a good number of visitors, perhaps for its proximity to different temples. The towns we changed trains at to get to Hyderabad were (at different points) Kharagpur, Nagpur, and Vizag — not places that would get you particularly curious, perhaps, because there is always a relative or a friend of a cousin living there. We spent hours waiting at the station, or in the odd case, breaking the journey at a guest house or a distant relative’s house. My dad travelled often for office work, and at Rourkela, the train stopped so long that he got off for a meal at the Marwari restaurant nearby.
As trains sped past railway crossings, with the inhabitants of the town clustered at the signal, waiting for the light to turn green, I tried to pack in as much as I could of the place from their expressions. I’d imagine the waiting people going back in the evening to the houses that would presently appear, shopping at the stores advertised on the hoardings, or passing the years in search of an opportunity to move to a different city or country. What really kept them in this small town with dim lights, and who visited this temple among the thickets in the middle of nowhere? What drove all these little towns, when all we talked of was ambitions, never contentment?
I simply thought and wondered about these things. Ghosh goes several steps further to visit towns that don’t find a place on travel itineraries or in books. Mughalsarai, Itarsi, Arakkonam, Guntakal. The names have magic in them. But is/was Mughalsarai actually the grand travellers’ resting place on a royal route, that the name seems to indicate? Or is it yet another regular town where all the life is concentrated in one street? We’ll find out soon.
