I see the train for the first time!!

I see the train for the first time!!

City of Ollur lies south of the bigger Town of Trichur.  In this city were we all living when I was a child. We mean, myself and my brothers and sisters all elders to me and the too little young me.  There were two little sisters to me too. We had our house in an interior area of the village of the city,  which followed down to the paddy fields. We walked all the way through a by lane to the tarred road outside and there in a triangular junction, the old bus Sreeramachandra came.   But the train never came there.  I was not aware that there was such a machine at all!

One day it so happened that father was getting ready in the morning and asked me if I wanted to go with him as he was going to his younger brothers house where my Granie lived. Grany was dear to my father and also very dear to me.  Granie or not, when it came to 'Going out', I always readily agreed.

We walked to the city of Ollur, saw the police man standing under the concrete pillar carrying the central light and controlling the traffic, watched the traffic carefully, and when the convenient time came, crossed over, and turned left to the road going to my 'Ilayappan's (That is what I called my father's little brother, who had returned from the British Army) house.  We walked among different houses on either side of the gravel road and came to a huge white gate with the red spot on one of them with the word STOP.  Here we turned left and walked up a hill whose right hand side was cut out into a huge canal in which there were a lot of rock stones neatly arranged and over which was two long long rails.  

We walked parallel to the rails and after a few houses turned left to a beautiful garden and further into a small clean house where my Granie lived.  She was there in the verandah and smiled when she saw father.  She asked about our welfare when father opened his 'madisheela' and gave her the special tobacco he had bought from the city.  This made Grannie extremely happy and she said: "I knew you would bring it!"  I never knew how she knew it as the trip itself was just decided and the tobacco was purchased in the city only, just when we were walking up!  There were no telephones or cell phones or any such thng in that point of time but still 'Grannie knew my father would bring it!!"  Such were the old time Grannies, they knew things much much ahead of its happening!

Seeing me she said, "You have grown big, come more often to see me. I will show you the 'theevandi' .  My eyes became large with astonishment at this statement and I asked.  "Theevandiyo,  evide?"  (The train, where?).  She was very peaceful and told, 'Keep your peace, when I tell you this, I will as well show it to you".

She called out the son of my Ilayappan and ordered him: "She him the train, it may be coming now, be very careful and do not take him to the extreme edge of the pit".

My Ilayappan's son was of my own age a little kid, but a little heftier, but almost the same.  He knew the train.  I did not and had not seen it at all.

Then there was the long whistle and sound like the earth quake! My Ilayappan's son said: "Come let us go and see the train, do not run, stay calm and stand with me:  Do not be frightened by the noise".   We walked to the edge of the land where the huge deep canal started with the rock stones and the rails in it.    When we reached the edge, my friend said "Look left"  and there was the black monster with a large light on top roaring in shaking the whole place and again and again sounding the horn!  The first train, I was seeing. 

On the left, the long canal from which it came, turned to the right after a long distance, from where we could not see it.  So, it became custom for us to run to the edge of the canal when we heard the commotion, and wait for the huge black train to appear!  We wanted to get all the time the huge theevandi was in our sight.  The huge black tank with the large light on top came along with a clang and chugg making a little earth quake as it came and went.  The huge tank in front was a water tank and below thetank was all the drama.  There was huge wheels, some too huge, some a little smaller.  They were moved with equally long and large steel shafts or pistons all working in tandem with steam. Steam emanated from a lot of slots and one or two slots were just below the firing cabin!!

When the train came near we could see the men inside the engine very clearly and from very close quarter.  As we were standing up on the upper ridge and the train was running in the ditch canal as the land was dug up like an open tunnel to spread the rails, it was a close sight, indeed!  The gentleman can be seen at times opening a burning hole and throwing or shovelling black coal into it and then he will turn around with the shovel in hand and using one hand he will pull a wire over his head which brought out a bhoo...bohooo.....whistle.   Some times he pressed something and the immediate area below became a cloud of steam which did not affect him as the train moved away from the cloud at a good speed!  I was told that he had another button which he pressed if he found children very near to the train.  That button is for throwing hot steamy water on them.  My God!  This gave me the gitters.  But the man himself did not seem to be that bad, except he was all black with coal and he had a black hand-ker-chief tied on his head.  Many times he stood on the side looking out side to see the passing panorama.  Would he have seen us, would he ever have wanted to talk to us.  Is he a human being?  All these thoughts kept on boiling in my mind.

At times, the thought of the train coming to the roads and the buses, especially Sreeramachandra, our usual bus and other vehicles panicing etc. came to my mind.  The soothing thought of the train being unable to go anywhere but the rails appeased me.

Once the train had gone, we looked at the rail for some more time and went back to the Ilayappan's home where Grannie was preparing morning breakfast.   She was a keen and good worker especially when it came to house hold matters.   She had brought up all the children single handedly as Grandpa had died at a young age of forty forty two or so.  Then it was Ammama (Granie is called loving Ammama here) and my father had to bear the brunt and they did it marvellously.  Father was always jubilant about it and said 'I can look after all of you and even my grand children, I am never afraid of these things' 'We are the old genre'

We had a simple breakfast of kanji and payattila kootan and some chembu curry (payattila is the leaves of pea plant and chembu is an underground stem usually eaten boiled with a little salt or made into a vegetable curry).  Ammam was too good at plucking and cleaning and cutting the leaves and making a dainty dish out of it with coconut springlings!  We were about to finish our breakfast, the earth shook again.  I wanted to go and see the next train and called my friend!  He was not interested at all!  He said, in a day the trains come several times, we do not go to see them all.  This surprised me.  Such a nice sight! What a marvellous engine, what compartments carrying different varieties of loads, some carrying wood chained to a platform, some with oil some with coal and what not !  A number of them were covered and locked with pasted addresses and names of various items on them which we could not read.

All the more one should see them in the rain!  They are unaffected. Not like the Sreeramachandra and any other car on the road which at times broke down.  The train goes undaunted. The driver and the firemen feel very safe inside indeed!  With that kind of monstrous steel and power nothing will stand against it.  I was told in those days, that if any person or animal came in front of the train, it is the person and the owner of the animal which will be punished!  Those were the days.  All the same, these great and wonderful coal fired engines  also carried people in express and mail trains to distant parts of the country too!  Then there were the local trains too which were also too very important!  But many people did not know of that as much as it was known and used today.

As I said earlier, the train appeared in the tunnel from far up on my left where there was a curve to the rails and the canal, which is from the south.  I always faced west.  The train came from the south and went to the north.  Of course that is how I mostly recapitulated it from my memories!  At times, the train did come from the north also!  But the north side trains when they came appeared from level ground and the charm of looking at it while coming from far up from the tunnel like canal from the south turn was not there.  Somehow the enchantment was when it appeared at the curve, moved through the tunnel, horned heavily in the bhoo...bhoo...coarse sound, and steamed in and steamed out!  The fireman will be at times busily throwing coal into the furnace and we can see the hell like fire in the furnace hole which will be open.  The the pulling of the wire by the man in the engine cabin which made the bhoo...bhooo...whistle to warn those who crossed the rails etc.

Slowly, I got used to the train, its engine, especially with the connections to the wagons or coaches etc.   My interest started to go into the other appurtenants connected with this great travel cum carrier mode.  The two rails when it went north got into other rails and by the time it reached the railway station three furlongs away, flowered into at least six rail tracks of which four were for goods trains.  Goods trains were simply called 'goods' only.  People around the rail tracks knew the average timings of these trains  as say, ten o' clok goods,  Twelve o' clock mail, and most important of which was five o' clock 'island' .  The five o' clock island was the "Island Express' which passed exactly at 5 pm operating from Ernakulam to Bangalore.  The beauty of this train was the speed with which it came and went.  The engine will be in full swing, the pistons will be pumping feverishly, the steam will be spewed continuously, the man in the firing cabin will be throwing coal and another will be pulling the wire to sound the horn bhoo...bhoo... and it will pass the station nearby so quickly that every one nearby looked at it with awe.  Sometimes, somebody said "What a speed! Know?  It is the Island that has just gone!"  The others will agree.  It does not have a stop here. That is the sad part of it.  Ollur City station does not have a stop for Island and anybody travelling by it will go to Trichur to catch it where it will stop.

It did not make any difference for us as we never caught or used a 'Theevandi' neither for here or anywhere else.  The trains and aeroplanes are to be seen and enjoyed.  We were thoroughly on the ground on these matters.  Only thing we looked at was Sreeramachandra, which came near to our by-lane road and at the triangular bus stop (there was no bus stop as such, anybody showing a hand and the bus used to stop.  The person showing the hand should be a grownup fellow the make the driver feel that he may pay up on entering and travelling the bus.  Sometimes, he bipassed children and women if he was not satisfied to the utter consternation of the would be travellers).

The rail lines on moving to the north to the Station had a speciality just near where we were standing.  It had some connections and strong lead steel fittings which moved before the train came.  According to their movements a piece of the rail bifurcated and joined with another piece of rail.  The drama was to change the lane track of the train which was coming as the 'goods' used one track but the passenger mail or expresses used another.  Then there was the great 'Kinaatti' which is the hand signal painted red on a very tall pole which could be seen from at least two kilometres away.   This I liked very much.  At times I raised my hand like a kinaatti and put it down as I saw the Steel kinaatti doing before the train came.

We, mostly, me only,  (none of my other friends were interested in this 'useless' escapade) was very interested to watch this going up a few minutes before the train arrived, and as it passed or crossed the pillar with the kinaatti, the kinaatti fell to its horizontal position again.  In the evenings a man went up the pillar with an oil lamp which he fixed behind the head of the kinaatti.  This lamp burned the whole night and when the train came, if the kinaatti was not up as if someone is standing with one of his hands straight up, the train had to stop there. As the light from the signal will be red, full red and a Red light meant the train had to stop!  Then the cabin man or the coal thrower pulled the wire to alert the Station Master in the nearest station to give him the green signal.

It is the same lamp which will give the green signal, but only when the Station Master allowed it.  The man at the Station working under the Station Master will be told to pull a handle which led to the Signal Pole and the turned wire will sent up the signal, its head portion with the two glasses of green and red and this time, when the signal is up the Green Portion of the Glass will come in front of the oil lamp and the onlookers will see green light!! And the Engine Driver can now proceed!  This was really a great feat, indeed!

The same oil lamp stopping the train, the very same oil lamp allowing it to go!  The trick is on the signal.  If the signal lies horizontal, it is red and if it goes up, the light turned green!!  What an idea!  But alas, these were only in those days of the past!  Now there is no such dramas.  Only a small pole with three different lights, Red, Yellow/Orange and Green.  I don't know what the Yellow or Orange stands for.  No idea! Never worked in the Railways, even though I once came close to it!