In Praise of A Government Enterprise

nice.. nice.. nice...

someone somewhere mentioned a non-existent ``IIIrd Class`` - well this still exists and goes by the name of ``IInd Class unreserved``. Wooden seats, hankies used to reserve spaces if one has to get up (hopefully not for the toilet) and so on. Crowded routes such as Delhi - Allahabad act as sone-pe-suhaaga. Having experienced n number of trips in this class during my college days, I wouldn`t wish this on others - but would not trade these memories for anything else in the world.

``A few times, I went outside the air-conditioned coupe and opened the door; that was when I felt really to be part of the outside landscape.``
If there is heaven on earth, it is here.. it is here.. it is here..

As regards the food, I love whatever Indian Railways or the station vendors have to offer. Shatabdi / Rajdhani is marginally better than the others but the bread-omellete from my last Rajdhani trip when I was in India is testimonial to the fact that that is no 4-5 star catering. Though, as i said, it`s all good..

dost-mittar & others, you`ve thrown me into a dreamy state of mind.
thanks.

Ali, we would love to see your snaps. I have been on the Bangalore Mysore route, though not very often but it is indeed wonderful. I have mostly travelled from Bangalore to Delhi and vice-versa, the two- day journey with all the changing moods and hues of India from north to south.
For us NRIs, India maybe like paradise but what to do about those staying in India who just crave to go to a ‘phoren’ countries at all cost.

Pankaj/Sadna/Ali…… So much for our research on ‘kulhads’..a bit more effort and we can sure start –import-export of kulhads. Or a small scale industry called “Klean Kulhad”..where they are properly washed/shaped and safe to use. Jokes apart..anything to improve everything about India…

stukamaestro: go to the socio-cultural (or whatever the hell it`s called) unplugged. i`ve put in the link for the new punjabiyat thread in the `I lost my Punjabi mela` topic. The first one was put to rest by most if not all of us...over a thousand posts!
agli vari tikker :-)

ali87#49
In the Bangalore vicinity, mostly on the Bangalore-Hosur-Salem road I have on a number of times seen terracotta figurines (mostly horses) put out for sale along the road. That seems to indicate there are local clay sources.

ali87 and stuka

Ali87 is right in the sense that a lot of kullads I saw in India this time were of poor quality and dusty. Good kullads have a uniform texture and a characteristic brownish hue. Moreover, kullads should be soaked/washed in water before use so that dust goes away and kullads become clean. This time I noticed that some chai-wallas were using dry and dusty kullads.

I support all attempts to repopularise kullads in India for the following reasons -

1) Kullads are environment friendly while paper cups or plastic cups are not. While plastic cups are non-biodegradable, paper cups require cutting down of trees and hence both should be avoided at least so far as we can afford to substitute them with a similar cost product (kullads what else).

2) Kullads generate employment for small scale and unorganized labour sector of our economy insofar as the money goes to the needy people.

3) And most importantly, kullads impart a certain taste and aroma to the said food items which has a synergistic effect on the quality of the food.

So what should be our new naara- Clean, hygenic kullads for All... Amen

#41 by m_souza on April 12, 2003 9:46pm PT

I was in India in Feb took some snaps of the lush green fields in the on the Bangalore mysore Route as well as Hyderabad route. Ill post a link a few days later if you would like to see them.

I felt alive in India. After a year in US it seems like paradise. I can take every thing in India except the city roads. Im just escaping from them.

There are some safety issues with the present day khullad`s The clay used by the present day potters is not the same that was used earlier. Often bad quality stuff is used and at times it may have high mineral content. I have been trying to find out if some one had some knowledge about local clay sources and what is the present pottery is made of but looks like we just give no importance to our heritage. People give me strange looks when I start enquring about it.

Where is the Punjabiyat board now? I lost it.

George Fernandes had a brilliant idea of re-introducing Kullads and they had made a comback, but last year again it was back to paper cups.

Banjaara:
Shukriaya sau baar tera shukriya! ...there`s more where it came from.

Studebaker:
Buses seem to be more popular for shorter journeys in India. They are more frequent and cost no more than the ordinary class in trains. And cars are being increasingly used for personal journeys despite the high cost of petrol. BTW one of the reasons for the popularity of Indica is that it uses diesel which is significantly cheaper than petrol. And there are now fairly decent roadside restaurants/rest house for road travellers - I was particularly impressed by Haldiram`s on Delhi-Jaipur highway which, incidentally, is now a much improved divided highway.

Pankaj:
Food on Shatabdi is catered to by 4-5 star hotels, unlike ordinary trains where it is catered by railways or contracted out in a cheap way.

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Dost-Mittar

A nice article. If you are travelling by AC 1/2, the quality of food served is indeed very good. I remember the quality of food served on Lucknow-Kanpur-Delhi Shatabdi Express was far superior to what was served on Lufthansa India-Frankfurt-USA under ``Hindu meal`` category. And yes, there are two things I always prefer in a KulhaD - good masala chai and `Kaalaa zaam` i.e. black rasgulla. If Kaala zaam is from Orai then all the better.

dost-mittar jee,
``Pyaas kuch aur bhi bhaRka di jhalak dikhla ke``
This reportage wasn`t enough to satiate the thirsty.

ana:
I will try to write a more personal one, although I thought that the updates at Panjabiyat were mostly personal. I am sorry I didn`t get to see any feedback on Panjabiyat or respond to it. Hope some people liked them.
The tonga drives were also precious. They are now a thing of the past. I can never forget the sound of ``Hai koyee kali sawari sadar dee?`` These days, the buses do the same thing; they run their engines and keep the passengers waiting till the bus is full, just as the tonga-drivers did in the old days.

farzana:
Looks like they have done away with those disposable, yet environmental-frienldy kulhads on the trains...at least I didn`t get any. They have been replaced by flimsy, disposable, ugly and user-unfriendly paper cups. They are so flimsly you can`t hold without squeezing them even when they are full...and they are too hot to hold, except with the rim. In my case, there was an added problem: I drink my tea black and railways caterers bring hot water pre-mixed with milk. I finally found bag tea without milk on platforms but couldn`t solve the problem of those flimsy cups.
As for soup, I they were not my cup. I am more used to eating my soup and the railways expect you to drink it.

I visit India every year and as all NRIs would know, have to do a lot of journey to meet all the `rishte-daars` and friends. So, in a way, we who live abroad get to travel sufficiently(occasionally more than desired), compared to our Indian locals.
But still prefer to travel by every possible class and not just AC class as this is more fun and I can take back the memories of all the sights and sounds, get the real feel of real India. The lush green vast lands all along just make me feel proud of my motherland, evokes emotions of why I am residing so far away from it .... and then as the stations approach, the same multi-cultural, multicolored `hulla-gulla` ...which again I love..as this is Indianness

And as Farzana mentioned about `the chai in the kulhads`..I still love it(not when it tastes chalky or something watery)..when it has its normal sweet, milky taste..but I always need two to quench my tea-thirst as it is normally a small cup. I feel that if I hold it too tightly, the `kulhad` will break.

mittarji....
now i want to read more about the rest of your journeying. i know you gave us at the punjabiyat site some updates from time to time...perhaps you could use those in the more `personal` repput temporal suggests.

i, too, have been fascinated by trains...however when i lived in pakistan i can recall very few train journeys we made. my earliest memory is travelling from lahore to khanewal my very first christmas in pakistan..which was in 1970. from khanewal we went by tonga on the dirt road to my mother`s village. I don`t remember the train ride so much as the tonga ride because i loved tongas as well. the train journey i recall more vividly is the one we made, on one of our brief visits to pakistan after we had emigrated. again, it was from lahore to khanewal...we sat in a car filled with women with covered heads who stared at us uncovered females. It was rather uncomfortable, not very clean, and very little privacy. and this time my maamoo and cousin-brother picked us up in a rented car and we drove on the much improved road to the village. The journey back was somewhat better, although there was some confusion with the reservation and we didn`t think we`d be able to return that day. we did manage to get three seats for ammi, my sister and myself and we did not have to sit in a `for women only` car.
i would love to travel via train through India when i am able to do that. and have gotten some great pointers here. thank you for sharing part of your travels with us. :-)

dost-mittarji:
I do not relish long-distance rail travel...many women don`t :) But you had some interesting insights, though I was wondering when you will submit something on the other sights and sounds...(everything was not unpleasant, was it??!)

Did you not enjoy the chai in the kulhads? And do you know they serve soup at breakfast on the Indrayani Express on the Mumbai-Pune sector? I used to prefer the Deccan Queen with its cafetaria...and the toy train, I have travelled to Matheran from Nerul, close to Mumbai...but it was so slow, that we jumped off and trekked up the hill...

And then there are the locals of Mumbai, the great boon. I recall going for a film at `Eros` and my friend and I had to return home to the suburbs and jumped into the first compartment on the Churchgate platform, which is second class ladies`...we stood near the footbridge, and my hair, which was left loose, was bothering the woman behind. She kept on and I could not hear a word as I was `eating the air`` (hawaa khaana), but when she got aggressive and tapped me and pulled my zulfein, my friend snapped at her: ``Kya usko apnaa baal ghar par chhod aaneka kya?`` Of course, it did not strike that woman that I did not relish having my hair in her mouth or up her nose either!

Khair...glad it was a good chugging along for you....