The Frontier Mail

Sunday, 21st September'08. The television screens and newspapers have not cut down on reportage about the Delhi bomb blasts; the Marriot Islamabad bombing visuals and theories appear to be a louder echo, occupying as much if not more screen and mind space. Hushed whispers where people who do not know each other meet in intermodal exchanges, but at the same time there is no denying a frantic sense of movement like people trying to get back somewhere but not really sure where - the best way to describe it would be this - millions of confused ants swirling about when they feel the earth trembling around them for reasons unknown, shaking their oh-so-carefully made anthills.

I say, can a ton of explosives in a truck, designed and timed to go off for maximum effect in an iconic hotel within a city that is nothing short of a fortress, be anything short of a grand plan, asks the successful infotech czar?

It is different in the house of a friend where I am one of a largish party of people in for lunch - those within the anthills feeling secure, if you get what I mean? It is as though we are listening to Ghulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan rendering Faraz's Ranjish as a sort of war cry, we don't care, it's only an illusion out there but here we are different, the blessed from Indian's new generation.

Frankly, I love this life, too. One does not need alcohol or narcotics to get high anymore, just tuning in is enough, especially if one's own spouse is not present. The innuendos fly thick and fast, but like clouds in the monsoon, will go and rain elsewhere unless you chase them.

Honey-buns, where are we going for our next holidays and with whom?

On the way from Pune to Mumbai/Dadar in the share-seat taxi, and then in the local taxi from Dadar to Mumbai Central, both times the drivers are fasting Muslims. One says his name is Faheen but his religion is the highway for 3 generations now, his grand-father drove huge petrol guzzling American cars on the same route, his father drove humbler diesel Ambassadors, and now he pushes an air-conditoned Tata Indica which runs on a mixture of fossil and bio-fuels. The other one, phlegmatic Musafirkhana Bambaiyya to the core, dryly tells me that the nickname "Pappu" is safer to use nowadays. Drivng through the Ramzan food lined evening streets, we get to the station two hours early in his rattly Premier, converted to CNG. All gone to Pakistan 60 years ago in the name of the "qaum", and now they are flocking back in the name of "medical", jumbo jet full loads of them come everyday, wanting to get married and settle down here, says Pappu.

It is still early for your train, Sahib, dreams are made around Bombay Central, if you want I will look after your luggage while you enjoy, anything? Girl, boy, combinations, this is Bombay - you ask, and it will be there.

My train. The Frontier Mail, started service in September 1928, Bombay to Peshawar in 46 hours. Sure, there were other trains on the route too, but none like this. Pride of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, it built up a formidable reputation, and was till the advent of the Rajdhani Express trains a couple of decades ago, the most pretigious long-distance train on the route, destination curtailed to Amritsar after 1947. "House colours" for the Frontier were sandy brown on top and dark brown below. Schedule integrity was imperative, and the number of stops was limited, mainly at railway junctions for technical reasons or cantonment cities en route. Bombay - Baroda - Ratlam - Kota - Bharatpur - Delhi - Meerut - Roorkee - Saharanpur - Ambala - Jullundur - Amritsar - Lahore - Rawalpindi and thence to Peshawar. Now there are 34 stops till Amritsar. I grew up in railway towns listening to the older lot talk about the wonders of this train.

They came from Peshawar to Bombay on this train to seek their fortunes, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Karim Lala, Pathan money-lenders, Central Asian traders, but the dining car was only for Europeans.

I head for the Upper Class waiting room, a huge cavernous hall on the First Floor of Mumbai Central, a lift which was installed at least a century ago creaks and groans its way up. Unlike the imposing CST (previously VT), designed for Melbourne but built in Mumbai to true Gothic style due to a mix-up in the mail, Mumbai Central is a squat and unimposing building, best described as "ultimo PWD". Actually, the PWD were the first owners of the British Railway system in 19th Century India. I guess we all got lucky. Freshen up, grab a cup of tea, and am busy - looking at the crowds in the concourse below. There is a lot of checking going on, and within 15 minutes I figure out the pattern - random, but aimed at young males travelling alone or in small groups.

What are you looking at, Sir?

Suddenly there are two policemen behind me - obviously I have been spotted standing outside in the heat and dust of the open balcony when I could have been inside air-conditioned comfort. The policemen are very polite, but thorough, with this technique of one asking the questions while both stare at your eyes intently while you answer. "Mera naam Malik hai", the surname "Malik" and the beard never fails to turn them on, the long hair confuses them. Luckily, one has been a cadet on the TS Rajendra, and junior form prepared you for much worse. They ask to see my baggage, we go in, every eye is on me. Something like a tennis match. Check laptop case, show SMS messages on mobile phone, see what's on the camera, not really satisfied with my answers, they ask me to sit inside while waiting for the rake to come on the platform, seems we have to worry about people stealing our luggage. The people next to me are all agog.

Did they ask you for a bribe, luckily it seems you may not have had any pornography, that is all they catch you for here.

The rake is on Platform 1 now, and we are asked to board, coolies who have been squatting outside now march in. I am asked a dozen times if I need help with my strolley. Going down, I now have an escort of two different policemen, who walk with me till my wagon. I check that my name is on the list, compartment "C" of coach HA1, they check it too. Suddenly, I am treated differently, almost with deference. Another half-a-dozen cops arrive, and shake my hand, commanding the cabin attendant to take my little strolley into the compartment. I am now a minor VIP, to be got rid off as soon as possible. One of the cops is obviously a motoring fan, and has recognised me from a past avatar, and we go through the usual "which car should I buy" kind of routine that I have almost forgotten.

I was suspended for nine months because the Editor of an Urdu paper complained against me, so hope you understand, please don't mind?

The train has now been re-named 2903, Golden Temple Mail, and is in the standard boring Indian Railways mainline broad-gauge Oxford Blue livery. There is one bright red Railway Mail Service van, in the 24-bogie configuration, the rest are standard High Capacity Parcel Vans, General Unreserved, 2nd Sleepers, AC3T, AC2T, and AC1. No more dining cars, but a pantry cum service coach in the middle. The food we will get can be seen here:- http://www.irctc.com/menu.html . . . as always, railway food is better off the platform. We leave dot on time, and are crackling through Mumbai's suburbs, off-season travel so the train is not really that full, and I am alone in a coupe, so that's wonderful too. The Travelling Ticket Examiner comes on his rounds, and asks me for my driving licence, since I am on an e-ticket. He looks unhappy, in the way TTEs do, when they haven't caught anybody. The advent of off-counter ticket sales has really reduced the top-up incomes for many in the Railways, since you can now even get onboard a train with a platform or journey ticket, and if a seat is free, then reserve and pay the rest on your mobile phone or laptop, and then show them just the PNR.

Internet ticketing makes our life difficult, we are seeing so many scams nowadays, but this is the future.

In reality, many of the financial scams and frauds within the Indian Railway are internal. Using expired or declared damaged ticket stock was one way. Pocketing cash on fake paper receipt tickets another. Fiddling with the reservation status another. Counterfeit currency is a real worry, between 8% to 25% by some estimates, of 500/- rupee notes are suspect. But then, that's also tradition, and will things change so soon? the Frontier Mail also served another great purpose - it linked the poppy producing Pathans of the Frontier with their buddies in the Khandwa region, and brought the commerce to the alternate British port of Bombay, instead of using the more traditional routes favoured by the Mughals, via Karachi or Hazira. An old buddy, IAS Officer from the MP cadre, esplained this to me years ago.

The Brits wanted to pump Bombay and Calcutta up and destroy the old overland trade routes as well as the other ports in India. Look at old Indian Railway maps, and understand the logic.

The Frontier Mail's old route falls into the logic perfectly. The rail linkage to the great Mughal port of Hazira, off Surat, was built as recently as a few years ago - that too by a private port. The lines further West into Gujarat and Sindh and thence to Karachi were metre-gauge, so absolutely useless for commerce and trade when compared to broad gauge. The route via Bhopal and Gwalior, though older and more populous, was given to the less important Punjab Mail which went into East Punjab via Ferozepur, dessribing something like a scissor or dual open-jaw at Delhi. But the Frontier Mail - it fitted the Grand Plan perfectly. This was the 2-day wonder-train on the safe garrison protected permanent way that would divert the wealth of the Silk Route to the British port of Bombay for dispersal both Eastwards past Singapore as well as West through Suez.

The coach attendant swings by, and prepares my bed for the night. Pillows, fluffed, blanket, pushed into coverlet. Bedsheet, tucked in tight. Before the lights of Mumbai have faded outside the darkened picture window behind my head, I am fast asleep. Only to be woken up half a dozen times before midnight by friends and family, asking me how I am, and other such earth-shaking questions. To all of which I have to give reasonable responses like, hmmmmpppphh. After that I stay awake till 3 in the morning, reading and snacking, and chatting with the running staff. They invite me for a drink, I decline, then I am offered a drag of the community chillum, which also I politely refuse, letting them know that I have been there, done it, and now need to get along, and tell them about how I used to be a regular on this route 2-3 decades ago, none of them know that this train has completed 80 years. I get a rapid lesson in "here and now".

Next to me, the SMS bits on my mobile phone keeps telling me "Thank you for visiting Maharashtra / Gujarat / Madhya Pradesh / Rajasthan . . . " and randomly welcoming me to the same states. They beep through the night, spelling out the urgency of the night clip. I wake up just before Ratlam, famous for nothing much, other than lines going off to other towns in Central India and a huge marshalling yard as well as engine workshop. After Ratlam, we cross the mighty Chambal, and reach Nagda, also famous for nothing much except - more lines going off to Central India.

Observations:-

i) There are a lot more container trains now than there were ever before. Including plenty of refrigerated ones - which means, meat and fruit/veggie exports are doing well.
ii) There is a lot less wasteland along this and other routes in India, and while you see tractors, much of the farming is still cattle driven. So much more agriculture, breadbasket, that's the word.
iii) The remotest of hamlets still look the same but they all have satellite dishes hooked on to their thatch roofs over mud walls.
iv) There are a lot more women on the move, even at small railway stations along the way, and they seem so much more confident in the space around them.
v) The complete route is electrified, double track (quadruple at places), and all signalling is automatic with displays inside locomotives too.
vi) Long sections of welded rails, sometimes 10s of kilometres long, make for very silent and oscillation free rides.
vii) Most rolling stock and train formations are not fit for 110 kmph, including high speed freight trains.
viii) Power generation plants as well as heavy industry is booming away from big cities, and so is small-scale solar energy for rural applications.
ix) Even non-paved dirt roads now have manned level crossings.
x) There are pockets of floriculture farms all along the railway routes, especially closer to stations. Likewise colleges.
xi) Many of the more recent bomb blasts have been in cities along the old route of the Frontier Mail.
xii) There are a lot more temples, mosques and churches along the way, all brightly lit up at night, no power shortage for God's symbols at night.
xii) Internet connectivity is absolute, and full-strength, without the drops that are so common in urban areas.


Outside, the Chambal flows as it has for ages. It is bright and sunny, and along railway tracks lined with the garbage that modern India on the move generates, livestock continue to graze placidly. The only change is that they don't flee when they hear a train blasting at them anymore. Nor do we, it seems, when our cities are repeatedly blasted. Inside 1AC, on the 2903, we are safe?