‘Pip- pop’
How i sneaked into the
railways..........
Z.A.Malik’49
Men may
come and men may go, but the wheels roll on forever, i.e., if the tracksare not
washed away by the mighty Brahmaputra during the monsoons. And talking of good old
Brahmaputra, one is strongly reminded of a stretch of metre gauge track running
from Agra (or is it Aligarh I am thinking about?) along the south slopes of the
mighty Himalayas to somewhere near China— I was never very good at history—
with a few loops and branches thrown in here and therefor good measure; and
this stretch, as I was about to say, is commonly known in the official circles
as the N.E. Rly, in short, the North Eastern Railway.
I don’t know if you know it, but it is so true that one
half of the world does not know what the other three-quarters is eating; and
that’s why I feel you must be more than wondering how the Dickens I came to be
deposited in the above-mentioned Rly. sometime during the heavy monsoon rains
of 1953. I’ll tell you how. Beg your pardon! Did I hear you say you were not
the least interested in the subject? Very well! Then I shall proceed with my
story.
The story that I am about to relate is an old one, and,
before you fall asleep, let me ask you a very simple question. Does any one of
my readers know how the alarm chain hanging harmlessly in your railway
compartment work? No? Oh, what a shame. Now, I shall be compelled to tell you
how. Of course you know if I ask people about anything, some will say this and
some will say that, but the fact of the matter is that this is what really
happens.
Say, for
example, that you, Bloke A, travelling in the Lucknow Katihar mail all alone in
a compartment, except for a thuggish looking Bloke (we shall call him bloke B)
sitting opposite you. The train is buzzing along at a nifty 120 miles per three
hours. OK, so far? Good. Now this is where you must follow me very closely.
Suppose now that the thuggishlooking guy, viz., the guy we earmarked as Bloke
B, gets funny ideas how to have a little fun and tries to give shape to these
ideas. As soon as he tries to leap at you and choke you (or pinch you,
depending on whether he has taken a fancy for your neck orfor the other end),
you, Bloke A, break the sitting high jump record and make a grab for the alarm
chain. Assuming that you managed to grab it and hold onto it on your downward
journey, the job will be done, that is, the chain has been pulled as designed.
This pulling exercise results in the ringing of a teeny, weeny bell in the
guard sitting room. The guard, who has just gone to bed after a hard day’s
guarding the train wakes up and, in a matter of minutes rings up the driver
from his telephone booth. The poor driver, who can’t hear him for the noise in
his engine cab, sops the train by a quick application of his foot brakes ,
changes into his walking shoes, and walks upto the back of the train to ask the
guard what he devil he wants at that time of the night (or day, as the case
might be). On his way to the guard he overhears you choking or scream (again,
as the case might be), and like a true driver, drives the choker (or the
pincher ) away.
Thus, you see, does the alarm chain work. Or at least
that’s what I thought some years ago. In fact many years ago. To be truthful
about it, I don’t even remember when. But this much I think I remember, namely,
that the time was well before I joined the good old Indian Railways as a burra
sahib in 1949. And let me tell you in all seriousness that nothing of the kind
takes place. And furthermore if you are dying to find out what really happens
in the deeply unfolding story of the alarm chain, read on dear reader, read on.
It all began when I was born as a bright littlebrat to a
couple of unsuspecting citizens of this great nation. But that is neither here
nor there. So let us skip the gory details. But how I managed to sneak past the
censors into the dubious ranks of locomotive engineers is, as I have stated on
many occasions, a long story. But to make the long story even longer, this is
how things worked out for the Indian Railways Superior Revenue Services—or
whatever they are called today.
Being a very observant sort of a chap, I realised within a
short period of only 18 years, i.e., the first eighteen years of my existence
on this planet, that the Railways were the stuff to be given to the troops. I
mean to say that this was the best means of transportation available on land,
in the air or on the high seas, or aboveor below the sea, depending entirely
upon your taste. To top this off, I had once, reading between the lines (a kind
of reading in which I have always excelled) of an advertisement in a local
paper, learned that this department was looking for some very bright lads, tall
dark and handsome, who were tops in Mathematics and under 19 years of age. Well,
I was under 19 years of age, and this gave me ideas. So filled up an
application form or two, and sent the SOS message to the then F.P.S.C. in New
Delhi. To my utter surprise, within two to three short months I received a
letter of summons from the commission (it was obvious to meanest intellect that
they were not about to let goof such a golden opportunity).
And so it came to pass (you see, I like to use this
expression from time to time), that on the morning of January 18 , 1949 a
little bird saw me presenting myself at the then Council House in new Delhi at
10 o’clock AM sharp looking sharper in tiptop condition (I even combed my hair
that AM). I was sweating profusely with the room temperature hovering around 53
degree F I declined the use of the fans provided in the room.
There is not much I remember of the oversized question
paper, and for that matter, there isn’t much that I wish to remember, but this
much I can say without fear of persecution (if that’s the word I am looking
for—maybe , I mean , contradiction) that every paper had an unearthly number of
questions to be answered in a very earthly number of minutes and seconds. The
Mathematics paper, if I am not mistaken, had about 80 questions to be answered
in 30 short mts. Whatever else you might say about the questions, there was at
least one good thing to be said about them. You either knew the answer, or you
didn’t. I mean there was no hanky panky about the whole thing. And this saved
us from getting confused, and this I must confess, was no small matter.
The examiner told us not to talk to each other during the
exams, and personally, I think it was rather unsporting of him. But I guess he
had his orders. Can’t blame the poor chap, and all that, you know. So we had to
be content by just passing our answer papers around till the bell rang (not to
be confused with the alarm chain bell in the guard’s sitting room).
In fact, now that I think of it, there was something else
that the examiner told us not to do. And that was that we should not attempt to
write on both sides of the paper at the same time—also that we should write on
at least one side. This, I admit was rather helpful of him, because this saved
us a great deal of thinking. And everyone knows we could hardly afford to think
at such an important landmark of our young lives!
The exams were over in about 15 minutes. Or so it appeared
to me. Actually the whole thing took us all the way to 12:30 PM, and we were
asked to shove off and return at 5 O’clock to look up the notice board. Those
whose names were printed in golden letters, were required to come back at 10
the next morning. Of course, whether you returned to look up the notice board
was entirely up to you. No compulsion at all, you see.
So, one by one, the 50 gallant guys staggered out of the
Council House, and for the sake of some quite relaxation, I purchased a ticket
for a horror movie in a local cinema.
My name, as you might have guessed by now, was among the
martyrs, but this did not encourage me at all. I knew that one look at my mug,
and the interview board would go into an uncontrollable laughter and throw me
out before I could say hello. After all, they were not looking for
Frankenstein’s ugly brother!
So I was punctual the next morning and waited to be given,
as they say in the vernacular, the bird. They called me into the slaughter room
at about 2:30 in the afternoon when I was already very hungry. Taking advantage
of my weakened condition, the three fiends who constituted the selection board,
and who, it may be noted here, had a strong resemblance to human beings, began
firing questions at me one before the other. I am sure that if
they had been the least bit observant, they would have noticed that I had not
yet said hello before the target practice started. But that, as you no doubt
know, is life.
The gang started with comparatively simple questions like:
So, you are Mr. Malik? Eh? What’s your father’s name? What is he? You needn’t
be funny Mr. M., we know he is a man, But what does he do for a living? I see!
What is the meaning of Veterinary Services (you see, my dad was a horse doctor
of sorts)? What train did you take to
Delhi? Did you say Railway train? Ha, Ha, Ha! I mean which one,
dummy? Oh, the Delhi Express? How far is Delhi from Calcutta? And so on and so
forth for 15 minutes.
When they realised that I was quite a match for their
silly questions, they moved over to sillier ones. They came down to technical
questions, and this is where they slipped very badly. You see, I only look
dumb. I am not really that dumb. But, how could they tell! One of them asked
me: Why do they call it the East Indian Railway? “Because,” I answered, “we
would all look dashed silly calling it the East African Railway”, but he didn’t
seem to hear me at all and said: What is the gauge of the track? How does the
vacuum brake in a railway compartment work (sounds familiar?), etc. On my
giving the approximate answers, they resorted to another angle of attack. They
took up the English language.
Well, Mr. M., can you give us a proverb in English which
has something to do with clouds? You know what English is , don’t you, Mr. M. ?
“Of course, gentlemen, I do”, and rattled off the one about the silver lining
and what not, and I may have put a little enthusiasm into my delivery. “There
is no need to sing here”, he interrupted, “and, by the way, what does all this
mean”? He nearly got me there, but true to my past tradition, I answered with a
straight face and uttered something about never giving up hope and all that
sort of rot (you will be surprised what a straight face can do for you,
especially if it has the brains to match). “Now, tell me who wrote: ‘Tell me
not in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream’?” “Honest, I didn’t”, was
what came to me at first, but with a little bit of quick thinking, I said,
instead: I really don’t know the guy, never met him, you know”. “Long fellow,
wouldn’t you say?” The fiend said with a Cheshire cat grin. “Oh, yes, I think
you are right there”, I answered, and I think I must have given him a friendly
smile in return, because the very next moment he told me in not too friendly a
manner not to make faces at him.
This much for English literature. After peering down at my
certificates, one of them looked up at me and said kind of sadly: “ So, you got
distinction in Urdu, did you?” “Yes, sir, I surely did, and I was the only one
in my school to accomplish this commendable feat and…” “Never mind,” he
interrupted, cheering up a bit but not enough, “Can you recite a poem by any
one of the well known Urdu poets?” ‘You mean a whole poem?”, I piped when I
started breathing again, “I really don’t know if I can. But I can give you a
couplet or two if it is all right with you.” He saidit was all right with him,
but as I was about to come up with the juiciest and the fruitiest one I could
recall from the works of good old Ghalib, the wolfish looking fellow on my
right who obviously had no poetic inclinations changed the subject 360 degrees
by asking me : “Can you make a rough guess of the dimensions of this room?” “In
feet, do you mean?” I asked, not one to be caught napping. “In miles, if you
prefer.” “Well,” I ventured, “I should say 15’ X 15’ X 15’.” “So you think it
is a cube we are sitting in, eh, what?” “Of course not, how silly of me to
suggest that,” I replied after having a second look at the walls. I even raised
my eyes at the ceiling, not so much to gauge its measurements, but more towards
a being far above the ceiling who could have come in pretty handy at this time.
“How about 15’ X 15’ X 12’?” not mentioning anything about the ceiling, I said
gingerly. “That’s better”, he grunted and looked very glum for the rest of the
interview.
I felt quite cubical myself at that time andthis other
bloke completely and hopelessly flattened me by wanting to know why I wanted to
join the railways. I noticed he became almost humanly bright seeing what a
terrible soup I was in. As for me, I thought a great deal about Home Sweet Home
for about3 and a quarter seconds, but soon regained consciousness. Why indeed,
I thought, did I ever get into this soup, and tried to pass it off with a faint
grin and a few jolly nods. But a look at the whole bang lot across the table
convinced me that escape was beyond ordinary human comprehension. It is very
difficult to speak fluently when one has lost one’s voice, but I looked once
again at the ceiling and muttered something about my natural urge for
mechanical engineering and an uncontrollable urge to serve Mother India in a
constructive manner. They obviously swallowed the stuff, because all three of
them sang out as if with one voice: “That will be all Mr. M., and good luck to
you.”
“Good bye,” I said and meant it to sting. It didn’t bother
them a bit. Or at least that’s what I thought. They didn’t care for the
sarcasm, because in another split second I had to make all possible use of my
speed and dexterity in order to duck under the table as a brass paperweight
came sailing towards me rapidly. I rushed out of the room and never looked back
again.
“Good Luck, indeed,” I mused. Wished
they had thought of it earlier. Anyway, better late than never, because the
luck part of it came in very handy. And so it happened that I arrived home
safely, and to this day itremains a medium sized mystery to me how I passed
through the mill or whatever it is called. But suffice it to say that I did;
because barely six and a half short months after the terrible day described in
the report above noted, I was politely asked to appear before a medical board
consisting of real physicians and the like. Reflecting on the cruel pranks
providence plays upon us mortals from time to time, in this instance, requiring
a medical exam. Of me, I realised that the game was indeed up. Dash it all,
they were serious about having real doctors on the board! That was the end I
thought. I knew that if it was to be a medical examination, I might as well try
to pass through the eye of the needle—or whatever it is that our friendly
people in Jerusalem tried to pass through in the old days. There was no getting
past it, an inner voice told me repeatedly. But you know what inner voices are.
Silly asses, that’s what they are. No one had told me that none of the doctors
would be a brain specialists. And I got through.