Central Station Chicanery

My first train trip to Madras is the one I don't remember - Mother told me that when I was a yet a new born and became less mewling though yet suckling, I was dutifully wrapped into a bundle and carried triumphantly like a trophy to meet my grandparents . I was born in Calcutta and had to be transported all the way to deep deep south to Tuticorin to meet them . Naturally, I don't remember the trip although my parents dutifully recorded it in a box camera for posterity. So , there is in the family archives a picture of a skinny infant with kohl-lined eyes and a huge black index fingerprint on the cheek to ward off the evil eye. It is obvious , that like all mothers, my Mother too , thought I was the most beautiful thing to appear on earth and had to be protected from what the Psalmist calls the arrows that fly by day.
The first train trip I do remember ( ostensibly the second ) was from Ranchi to Madras as a five year old . Father announced that he had booked the tickets for our travel to Madras and from thereon to Tuticorin and we would be spending a month and a half in the South. I skipped around the house , ran into the garden to spread the good news to the guava trees and whispered it to the thrumming dragon flies. My Mother, too, was excited ; living so far from her parents , her siblings and sundry cousins she had grown up with, she always longed to see them and hear the intonations of the Tamil dialect of Tirunelveli district. We would complete the first leg of the journey by the Grand Trunk Express by arriving at Madras Central station and then switch to the meter gauge train departing from Madras Egmore station to its final destination Tirunelveli. The particular bogie would be delinked and sent off to Tuticorin at the Maniachhi junction ( if my hazy memory serves me right).
Although there were still a couple of weeks to go, Mother immediately started her packing : packing for the trip was for her a massive military manoeuvre. First, the steel trunks that would be traveling in the break van of the train were identified, then the smaller suitcases that would be stowed under the seats in our compartment were chosen- one for each person. At least two extra trunks were assigned for all the extra things we needed to carry.
I sat next to my Mother as she stacked her everyday cotton sarees , blouses and other accouterments in the first trunk along with my entire summer wardrobe that consisted of frilly frocks in several colours, chemises and bloomers. Her Kancheepuram and Benares silk sarees were placed lovingly into the suitcase and nestling in them was her jewel box with her entire cache of ornaments.Mother thought it necessary to carry them with us, not wanting to leave them behind in the locked house. I never did know whether it was because banks did not have locker facilities then or she did not trust them! Into the same suitcase went a cloth bag with hairpins used to keep her chignon in place and dozens of safety pins and a natty little plastic box with all her cosmetics : her kumkum (ladies used real vermilion powder then and not the stickers of today) , a jar of Vaseline which would form the base on her forehead for the kumkum powder and a small silver box with homemade kohl paste. Father's suitcase was always a mystery to me but the one thing I saw him put in was his revolver. We would be travelling through real rough terrain cutting from the North to South through regions famed for dacoits and looters and he certainly wanted to keep his family safe.The trunk with hand me-downs and the one with gifts for a hundred relatives collected assiduously by my Mother over the months was packed
The last to be packed were the three hold-alls. For the uninitiated ; these extinct piece of luggage were basic bed rolls with two huge compartments at either end. After they were stuffed with odds and ends ( so that they justified their name) they could be rolled into one massive bulging roll and strapped tightly and swung over the shoulder and carried around by sturdy orderlies . Mother first spread in it from end-to-end a thin mattress . She then proceeded to stuff one end ( where the head would rest once it was uncurled ) with the pillows and sheets and the other end with towels,rubber slippers, shoes and several other pairs of footwear wrapped in brown paper bags ( the ubiquitous plastic bags had not appeared yet to ruin our planets) and toilet kits. Giving a final tug at the straps , these were lined up along with the rest of the luggage , which worked out to a dozen or more pieces. Mother generously allowed me to drag my little aluminium box containing my precious earthly possessions and cherished bric a brac: my comics, my little plastic farm animals , the smooth stones and thin sheets of mica that I found glittering in the garden.The trunks were numbered , the suitcases locked and Mother prepared a list to ensure that nothing was missed.
On the day of the journey she added several baskets: into one went bottles of pickles ,a bottle of jam, a tin of Bournvita; another basket contained steel tumblers, an empty flask to buy tea , coffee or milk ; plates , spoons, knives , fruit peelers and other useful implements. Another basket contained the huge steel carrier of cooked food for day one of the journey and several steel boxes of the less perishables for the rest of the journey. The final item was the clay jug ( surayi) for storing water ( which would have to be filled from the stations whenever the train stopped long enough) - if someone had told us then we would one day pay money to buy water he would have been drummed out of town.
My Father proudly added to this assortment his small Hitachi transistor which would be his way of keeping abreast with the news for five days.It was not only the Royalty of India who moved around with his princely possessions, the average Indian , too, moved around with all his household goods. The argument put forth by my Mother when Father glowered at the growing pile lined up against the living room wall was that it was not he but the train that would carry it all!
We travelled first class in a train saloon which consisted of a small room with four berths and had a bathroom attached. As a senior government officer Father was entitled to do so and no one had ever heard of flying.The journey was long and we lived in this little moving house for five days . As we journeyed I watched from the window the rushing and ever changing landscape . We crossed arid lands and lush green fields. Paddy fields, sugarcane fields, orchards and vineyards flew by my window as the train picked up speed . Sometimes it was miles and miles of monotonous flat land. Stations with exotic names went by and I made up a story in my head with each name .I learnt more of the geography of my country than any text book could have ever taught me.The train sped through dense jungles : frightening at night and thick, green and full of shadows in the day . We crossed rivers and chugged past villages where sometime little children ran out of their huts and houses to wave at the train. I waved back with the innocence and glee that only a five year old can possess . I saw small ponds and glittering lakes rushing by , sometimeI saw dried up lakes with cracked earth waiting to be filled again by the unfailing monsoon. I smelt the strong aroma of the molasses as we sped past sugar factories and the acrid smell of the rubber factories. During the day I saw massive anthills in which must have lived huge snakes and at night I saw twinkling village lights afar : sometimes a single light on top of a hill would indicate a lonely and a not-so-often-visited temple . I would sometimes get coal dust, spewed from the engine, into my eye and Mother would rinse my eye with water and chastise me for being careless. Father told me horrible tales of hands being cut off and warned me not to stick them out.My joy and excitement temporarily dampened I would withdraw and curl up on the upper berth with my comics for a while.
On the fourth day we chugged into Madras Central station .Ah , the sound of Tamil : the porters shouted as they jumped into the train even as it slowed to enter the designated platform. They wore red shirts and red shorts which were covered with grime and had a brass amulet claiming their status as authorised porters of the Central station. A faded blue cloth adorned each of their head like a quasi turban. This cloth, I later saw, was rolled into a cushion when they heaved the heavy boxes on top of their head . Saar, which is our luggage asked one as if he has known us for decades. Another quickly laid claim to us and they verbally slugged it out . They got abusive by the minute and I hid myself behind my mother wide eyed and scared of these red demons ready to kill each other. I listened to the coarse words I had never heard my parents use and never quite got the meaning of till much later when I became an adult. I was shocked to see them liberally use second person singular ( nee) while addressing my Father and expected my Father to thrash the rude and abusive fellows. I was initiated to Madras Tamil that day and to my tender ears that had only heard the softness of the Tamil as spoken by my parents, the rude words were frightening in their vehemence. One of the porters yelled to his friends for help and together they fought off all the other rivals and grabbed our baggage.When my Father asked how much they wanted he was promptly told he could give whatever pleased him. After all , they assured him he was returning to his homeland.Father was touched by the Tamil camaraderie and beamed. The porters respectfully requested my Mother to alight with me ; giving me a tobacco stained smile which only drove me closer to my mother . While we stood on the dirty platform next to a trolley loaded with something that oozed liquid stench ( probably fish ) another porter joined the two and they passed the luggage hand to hand and dumped it on the platform with Mother exhorting them to be careful. Father stood in the compartment to ensure that all was unloaded.Everything was quite orderly till all was unloaded and then suddenly it was mayhem!
The three porters ( while Father kept yelling he needed only two ) distributed the luggage all over their body. I watched with awe as they became the balancing acrobats in a circus with the trunks on their heads , the suitcases on top of the trunks. They held this towering pile with both their hands which seemed to have stretched to dangerous limits . Another foisted the holdall over their shoulders and hung their arms with the baskets. They looked like some fantasy trees that had grown luggage on their limbs.
Mother went crazy trying to keep track of the luggage as they suddenly broke into a trot that soon became a high speed canter .The porters it seemed to me, just wanted to grab our luggage and run away. I had never in my five years of earthly life seen such boldness and lack of concern for passengers. Our luggage was running ahead of us and my Mother dragged me in top sprint yelling at the porters all the while to slow down . They did not heed and my Mother dodged passengers and other obstacles on the platform and with me in tow picking up speed , and all the while keeping an eye on the bobbing suitcases . Father dashed behind the other rapacious fellows shouting a warning to my Mother to not lose them. Mother thrust the transistor into my hands and shouted to hold on to it.It was sheer pandemonium and I was convinced I would get lost or get trodden over by other passengers rushing around in a similar fashion each after their luggage. I held the Hitachi against my chest with one hand and held on to my Mother tightly with the other. We finally emerged from the station gates and the running porters eventually, to my panting Mother's relief , stopped and dumped our luggage on the ground . One shouted that he would fetch a taxi to take us to Egmore station from where we would have to continue the journey further South.Another lectured to my Mother that they were licensed porters and would not steal our luggage unlike the unlicensed rascals who prowled around . It did not reassure my Mother , after all she had not noted their numbers nor had she really paid enough attention to their faces. She thanked all her Gods that we had not lost anything ( a mocking minion from the pantheon decided to change the situation within minutes) . Father arrived with the other porter and Mother promptly started counting the pieces of luggage . I was exhausted by the sudden change of tempo and plonked myself atop a trunk and placed the transistor next to me . I gawked at the crowd that seemed to be moving in all directions at the same time . So many human beings rushing like ants in and out of anthills. There were elderly women with the pleats of their silk sarees tucked higher to provide agility,little girls with tightly braided plaits and silk long skirts; for the first time I saw young girls in skirts and half of a saree wrapped around them . The smell of jasmine flowers and coconut oil floated around them . The men had pencil thin moustaches and wore either veshtis or drainpipe pants and everyone was chattering so fast in various accents.
Mother finished counting and asked me to hand her the transistor and when I turned to pick it up : it was gone ! Bedlam all over again : Mother yelled at me for putting it down , Father yelled at Mother for putting it in my hands and not taking care of it herself. I howled with self pity and as a release from the traumatic experience of the day.
We were once again besieged by porters who wanted to know what had happened . At this point my Father lost all his love for his beloved Madras and went into a tirade about how we come from the north to our beloved land and the first thing we find are thieves and rascals. This stirred the Tamil chauvinism of the crowd consisting of porters , taxi drivers and vendors and several took off in different directions stating they would find the thief and thrash him and bring us back the lost transistor. The drama had now expanded to include the other passengers as well : some tutted and agreed with Father , some glowered at my Mother for her incompetence and some took off about independent India and is this what we became free from the British for. A policeman in knife sharp starched shorts appeared and the crowd jostled with each other to tell him the story. The moment my Father announced he was from the military, things changed . Some in the crowd now spoke of the shame that a returning hero who was serving his country so far from his hometown was treated thus, some pointed to me and said I would develop an inherent hatred for all Tamils and turn into a Northerner . It went on, with each having his say till a couple of porters dragged a sorry looking tramp by his frayed collar with the Hitachi in their hands. Mother quickly wiped her eyes ( tears that had appeared not so much by my Father scolding her as for losing the transistor) and I breathed again. The pleased crowd doled out more advice - some wanted to thrash the thief as a lesson to other prospectives lingering around stations , the policeman wanted to know if Father wanted to give a complaint also reminding him helpfully that it would mean he would have to postpone his journey and go to the police station with him . He sounded concerned about our vacation but Father caught on that he really wanted to avoid all the paperwork .Refusing to pursue the matter further Father thanked the nabbers. The policeman said that he was the one who had sent them to find the thief ( while he stood next to us!) Father should give him something ( the universal euphemism for a bribe ) as well as reward the nabbers .My Father pulled out his wallet and by that seemingly innocuous gesture the floodgates of greed opened.The three porters demanded their share for chasing and apprehending the thief . Another appeared with a bleeding toe and stated that he, too , had run to catch the thief and had stumbled and fallen . Had he not been injured in this brave attempt he would have been the one to nab the rascal ; he now needed money for medicine. Another chipped in that although he had not chased the thief, he had dutifully stood guard over the other things. He was also the one who had named the possible suspect which had made it easier for the others to grab the rascal. The list of those to be rewarded grew by the minute and soon my Father was pulling out all the money his wallet and handing it around. Seeing my Father helpless in the onslaught and money being splurged, Mother who had been silent till that moment, lost her temper and turned into a veritable Kali. Hell certainly has no fury as an Indian housewife who suspects she is being swindled ! The porters pushing each other to grab the money took to their heels and the cop cowered . My Father looked at my Mother with new respect and I felt safe in the world again with my heroic Mother by my side.
So we gathered our numerous trunks and holdalls and baskets and Father tucked the Hitachi under his arm and quick marched the entourage to the waiting taxi to get to Madras Egmore station.I stole a quick look at the stately red structure and the spire with the clock from the speeding taxi window and knew I would never forget my first introduction to this Madras icon .

The Eskimo in Madras

I have always wondered how owners choose the names for their shops, restaurants and other business establishments . Some simple and uncomplicated folks just a pick a god's name while others make do with the names of their mother/wife / kids- so we have Geetha cafes , Vijaya tea stalls and Murugan stores in almost every locality in Chennai . Some who do not want their fathers long name on the shop board (who probably funded the whole enterprise anyway ) call it SM stores or PK textiles or by some other initials. I guess the guy who calls his bakery Chicago Bakery has several reasons - he could be an Al Capone fan , an automobile aficionado or probably thinking it is pronounced as chickago (a common mistake ) thought it sounded tres chic or chick. There was a chicken stall owner in my locality(euphemistically called protein shop , so as to not offend the vegans) who obviously cherished his kindergarten days enough to call it Chubby Chicks. Frankly i thought it was droll flippancy but some others didn't find it funny and he was soon persuaded to change to a staid local name.Among all these exotic names the one i remember with great fondness is the one that flashes in all its neon glory against my mental firmament : The Eskimo Restaurant.

Ethereal food it was that drew my friend and me here regularly. We had finished our final Boards and as convent schools worked on a Jan- Dec schedule and colleges opened in May , we were totally footloose. Our parents were not particularly worried about the six month loss of scholastic pursuit because Senior Cambridge students ( as we snobbishly called ourselves while in reality our Board was actually called ICSE ) we were permitted to skip the Pre Univ course (P.U.C.)and would be admitted by the college directly into first year of the Bachelor course if you got a First Class. My friend and I ( rather tiring to keep saying that so i will choose the alphabet S for her identity) had decided the two courses to take for our future - if we got first class we would do B.A. and if we didn't we would run away to Auroville. We were not driven by any esoteric needs ; it was just that the fear of facing the wrath of our parents put the idea into our heads. Besides on our budget, Pondicherry was the farthest we could run ! Our parents in their wisdom and like Indian parents everywhere decided we should not waste our time while waiting for our results and admission to college. Cookery classes were an anathema to us and doll making would have have been a disaster so after much pondering and protest we were packed of for typewriting and short hand classes. My father located an institute on Wallajah Road which would serve both of us located mid way between my friends house which was off Mount road behind Amalgamations office and mine in Fort St.George. The classes were from 7a.m to 9a.am - so we had lost the battle for independence but won the war for freedom. While our fathers got ready for office we would be out of their way ( and any smart kid will tell you that those are crucial minutes when fathers can issue edicts that can ruin your whole day or even life ) and the rest of the day they would be out of our way !!
Seven in the morning i would be the only one solemnly standing in the bus stop out side the Fort St.George staring at the rampart walls till the old bus trundled along with only the driver and the conductor in it. The driver would stop rather reluctantly to pick up the lone teenage passenger . He often gave me the life-is-so- unfair-kiddo look feeling sorry for someone forced out of bed so early for considerations other than livelihood. I put on an appropriate look of martyrdom - would never let him know that it was actually a wonderful start to the day . S would turn up more often later than sooner and we would enter the shorthand class as late as possible raising thereby our chances of getting thrown out. Typewriting classes followed and while we typed exciting things about brown dogs and quick foxes for a week we soon decided to enliven our lives and developed ingenuous methods to amuse ourselves. Our master tried hard to train us but gave up on us the day he discovered us using three fingers to type the height of height jokes - some were bawdy so i shall not repeat them here.
Classes over we would jauntily walk from Wallajah Road past the red brick Police Asst. Commissioners office and past the Chellaram store. We would stroll along Mount Road fantasizing over the Eskimos menu and discuss as if our lives depended on it what we would order once we got there. S and I had sold our Mothers the sob story of how hungry we were after our class and the buses were too crowded for us to get home for breakfast, that we needed to eat somewhere and eat on time. The somewhere was, of course, Eskimos. We walked on past the Central Telegraph Office and suddenly before us would be Eskimos.
Eskimos as it was fondly called by its ardent fans was located in Dhun Building on Mount Road diagonally opposite Buhari Hotel (which has survived like , some lucky women , the ravages of Time) .The entrance to Eskimos was located next to a textile shop that had in its windows diaphanous sarees in pastel shades draped through hoops. I obviously do not remember the name ( Khatau/Mafatlal/ Cali-cloth ??)as i had absolutely no interest in sarees : fitted out as i was in the accepted outfit of the youth - denims , cotton smocks and with the ubiquitous Kholapuris on my feet. The other side of Eskimos entrance, in sharp contrast had dazzling silks in jewel tones shimmering in the window of Radha Silks.The glass door of Eskimos flaunted its status with the announcement A/C in gold letters which basically meant that all and sundry were not expected to enter its hallowed premises. In keeping with the fashion of the times not much attention was paid to the decor. To ensure that the plaster of Paris curling clouds on the ceiling didn't offend you , the whole restaurant was plunged in semi darkness. When you stepped in from the harsh and bright sunlight of a normal Madras mid-morn you would get the experience of groping in a dark Italian grotto right here and for free. Once the vision adjusted itself you would see functional tables and chairs strewn around casually .There was a semi spiral staircase that took you upstairs where there were sofa seats. At the entrance downstairs behind a tiny counter sat a cashier and if you were not careful in the dark you would have mistaken him for a fixture - for most days he just sat and glowered at the irreverent teenagers who dared to enter his sacrosanct chambers. We, of course, just swished our long plaits bravely and walked in secure for we knew we had enough to pay for our food.
S and i always went upstairs so we could place our mirror work cloth bags bulging with reams of typed gibberish and the shorthand notebook plus Mr.Pitman's tome on the sofa and pore over the menu with great diligence . My favourite, i never got tired of it - was the club sandwich. Statutory warning before you proceed : you may drool so you are cautioned! The club sandwich was layers and layers of Heaven in food form.There were two layer of lavish filling between three thick slices of fresh bread. There was bacon, ham, cheese, eggs, crisp lettuce and oodles of fresh vegetables all exotically dressed in freshly made mayonnaise. The cutlets ( not pre-cooked, dehydrated and frozen and micro waved like today) were scrumptious with real breadcrumbs rubbed all over that crumbled as you bit into it. It was not a place where you ordered your food and drummed your fingers to hurry the waiter - it was a place where you entreated for food and waited for it to be bestowed on you. While we waited, like a devotee reading the prayer book we diligently pored over the menu excitedly deciding what we would eat the next day. There were variations of sandwiches , combinations of burgers and juicy hot dogs . Indigenous samosas had been modified with interesting stuffing and there were crisp patties just waiting to be devoured by rapacious teenagers. There were several alluring flavours of milkshakes to slurp it all down with. We had never heard of calories or dieting and never cared about a pimple or two that threatened to pop up due to licentious eating - our mantra was not so much about looking good but feeling good. We felt so GOOD with all that food in our bellies that we lingered on the sofa just lifting our hearts and thanking God for his bounty.
Exiting Eskimos reluctantly we had to make a difficult decision turn right or left - to the right lay the Sapphire movie complex and the left Casino Theatre. It would be a throw up between the irresistible French charm of Alain Delon in Farewell Friend or Paul Newman ( may he rest in peace) and his blue eyes.So while we debated over the difficult choices in life , we never asked one nagging question for it really didn't matter anyway - why Eskimo?