The GT Express of Yore - Travel or Travail?

 The GT Express of yore – Travel or Travail ?

The Grand Trunk Express was the only  train for Madrasis ( an omnibus term for all those hailing from south of Vindhyas) for travel to Madras and beyond from Delhi before other superfast trains like  Delhi – Chennai Tamilnadu Express, Rajdhani Express and Garib Rath Express, were introduced. The GT, as it was popularly called, is one of the oldest trains commencing operations on 1^st January 1929. It takes 35.5 hours spread over two nights and a day for a distance of 2184 kms passing through 36 stations and eight states. Notwithstanding these impressive statistics, travel by GT in the fifties was a unique experience with no computerised reservation, provision of bed rolls, pantry car, air-conditioned sleeper accommodation

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Preparation began with booking of tickets one week in advance, which actually meant that you went to the New Delhi Railway Station on the previous night of the day when of reservation opened and took/marked your position in the queue. There you met friends as well as made new friends and talked as per the wont of Madrasis about your respective departments/officers and Panjabi jokes. Knowing that nothing was to happen till 8.00 a.m. the next morning when the reservation counter opened, you whiled away the in half-sleep and going out to the shops outside the station on Kutab Road for tea or cigarette , duly informing the person next to you in the queue to keep your place.

When the window opened, the booking clerk would spend some 15 minutes or so talking to his colleagues and opening and closing big registers maintained train-wise and blanking off seats earmarked for outstation quota etc. When your turn came, he took your reservation slip and spent another 5 minutes trying to make out the  connecting trains from Chennai to your destination , often some village in South India with no railway station, e.g. Ganapati Agraharam  near Kumbakonam. He would finally give up and ask you for help and   you would jump at this unexpected great opportunity to exhibit  your deep knowledge of the Indian railway system and start  a discourse on the connectivity of Ganapati Agraharam. The Madrasi  trait  in you for meticulous  details  in your presentation would only add to the booking clerk’s  confusion  as  you reeled facts like “ there are two terminals in Madras, one the Central Station and the other Egmore , that all south bound trains are on metre gauge originating from Egmore, that the  nearest railway station is  Kumbakonam which is on the Main line to Rameshwaram and not on  the chord line via Villupuram” etc. To his question why then should you have asked for ticket to Ganapati Agraharam where there is no railway station, you would explain that you are travelling  on LTC and  Ganapati Agraharam is your declared  native  place for LTC and that you have to produce tickets booked up to that place. The Panjabi booking clerk would mutter some choicest abuse in his mother tongue with which you are conversant thanks to your years in Delhi.

Now the preparations at home. Since sleeper class those days were not fitted with cushioned berths but only wooden planks and railways did not provide bed rolls,  bedding constituted the most important and indispensable  item of luggage . You could make it as heavy as you pleased since it was not included in calculating the free allowance for luggage.  So, it  became the heaviest  luggage containing not just the jamakalaams, bedsheets, pillows, blankets ( razaais in winter) but other items like discarded/worn-out dresses and clothing such as kanjeevaram/cotton sarees, men’s shirts (with torn collar), trousers ( torn at folds at the heels) dhotis, frocks,  pajamas and so on. All nicely tucked in oversized “hold –alls” (a bedding accessary made of very thick canvas cloth and rolled to form like a drum and secured tight with leather belt). The old and worn out clothing were taken to exchange them for “ever- silver” (stainless steel) utensils in Madras as such exchange was not available in Delhi.   Even if, against 6 silk sarees, 3 full pants, 3 shirts  and so on , you got only a spoon and a “katori” , it was  a good bargain.

 The long journey entailed taking adequate supply of food, snacks, water and coffee. Large tiffin carriers with idlis laced with milagai podi and oil, puri with sookka aaloo subzi, chapati, tamarind rice, lemon rice, curd rice, appalam, vadaam, mor- milagai, and other pickles formed the menu. .Big thermos flasks for hot water for making baby food were a must if there were infants in the family travelling. My mother would also carry milk in glass bottles (Horlicks bottles were ideal for this) for adding to the curd rice on the second day of the journey since by then it would have turned sour. 

 Coffee decoction was taken in a separate bottle to mix with garam dudh enroute. Needless to say we also would carry sugar and salt.  There were no paper plates, cups and napkins those days and so we had to take stainless steel plates, spoons, tumblers and cloth napkins for cleaning.

For infants there would be the improvised “thooli” (hammock) in the moving space between opposite berths and a good supply of mopping cloth. 

Magazines like Ananda Vikatan, Kalki, etc,  but the oppressive heat made sleep as the only leisure activity on journey.  Though some brought transistors, they could not be played in the noisy background of the running train. Most families travelled in summer months during school vacation. All fun of travel was lost  from the afternoon of the second day when the train passed through the hot parts of the country like Nagpur and Andhra Pradesh. The fans in the coach  would either not work at all or at slow speeds. Taps in the toilets and wash basins would go dry or would not function. 

On(railway)line purchase was done at Nagpur station, where you could not avoid  getting cheated buying oranges. The basket of oranges you bought paying one third of the price quoted would have only one third of the fruits good , the other two-th irds, hidden in the bottom of the basket, being sour or rotten.     

 The Delhi “Surahi” was another indispensable item. Filled at every major junction, after a dash   to the water-tap located farthest from your coach, their necks were always narrow to permit direct   filling of water from the tap and therefore more water was  spilled than filled.  Also, most surahis would not make the full journey to Madras as they more often than not broke enroute, the water flooding the coach and soiling the underbelly of the huge trunk boxes (light moulded suit cases were not in vogue) and sometimes seeping inside.

There was always a couple of Delhi “Modas” to carry which were what your host family said they would be happy to get when you wrote to them about your trip and as  courtesy asked if they needed anything specific from Delhi . These modas were both stool type and chair type and heavens forbid if the latter were transported since they occupied all moving space in the coach.  Another favourite item requested by friends was the “Jaadi” (aka Barani) in different sizes, one fitting into another for storing pickles and making curd. Packing them to avoid breakage in transit was an art. 

The snacks were usually home- made stuff like thattai, barfi, etc., plus Delhi’s famous atta biscuits. They were all nicely packed in old oil tins fitted with lids on top. On the return trip from Madras, these tins were used for bringing condiments like ammami appalam, vadaam, maavadu, etc besides tamarind, soap- nut powder which were not easily available and costly in Delhi.

The hold- all had to be opened and packed each night to take bed linen out. While opening was easy, re-packing would prove a hard task since its width was more than the width of the berth and therefore things stuffed inside would move and hang outside the berth. Sometimes the leather strap would break and we had do make do with some dupatta or old saree to tie around the hold-all.

About an hour or so before the train reached Madras, it was time to spruce up ourselves with a wash of  face and limbs, all blackened by the smoke from the engine and dust. A change into clean clothes would be warranted.  But by this time the water in the coach would have been completely used up and so some dry cleaning had to done instead.

The anxiety to set foot on Madras would turn into frustration when the GT ran late most of the days. Delays in arrival at Madras were the rule and not the exception in its case.  GT was the reason of the famous old joke when it arrived sharp at 6.15.a.m one day to the surprise of everybody. Lo, it was the GT Express which should have arrived the previous day!

Nonetheless, the joy on everybody’s face when the train at last stopped at “Namm Voor” Madras and  your host received you on the platform  greeting  you with “ Vango, Vango” (Welcome, Welcome) put paid to all the travails of travel by GT.