Some Thoughts

The month was June and the year 1988, the political climate in the country was tumultuous once the revelations of purported payoffs were made by Swedish Radio and a series of articles were written in the venerated Hindu newspaper in the infamous Bofors deal. It nailed the fortunes of a popular Prime Minister of India and the party he represented. Suddenly the left, right and centre catapulted a certain Raja of Manda from Uttar Pradesh to the highest position in the country a year later. How many people in this country apart from those in Eastern Uttar Pradesh are aware of the princely state of Manda? Travel by trains to discover the soul of India. Mahatma Gandhi too discovered South Africa and India through his relentless travels, understanding the culture, people, places and the thinking pattern of the populace. Meanwhile sometime in June 1988, the hallowed Union Public Service Commission, an imposing structure located on Shah Jehan Road, New Delhi announced the results of the estimable Civil Service Examination. Eureka! I had secured 205th rank. “Wow!” exclaimed my friends in admiration. After all the Civil Services Examination where lakhs appear is a real test of mental and physical scrutiny of an individual. I was selected for the Indian Police Service, to this day considered a challenging job in our country. Had I opted for the service and my career progressed in the laid down trajectory, yours truly would perhaps have been a Director General of Police of a state. But life never rolls out in neatly planned sequences. I was not permitted to join the much vaunted service due to certain family compulsions and in the end settled for Indian Railway Traffic Service. Today, I am posted as the Principal Chief Operations Manager, North Central Railway, Prayagraj (name recently changed from Allahabad to Prayagraj); a significant post in the railway hierarchy. This is one among the 17 zonal railways of the Indian Railways. I am in-charge of transportation of passenger and cargo traffic and planning and safety of rail operations. This zonal railway covers 5% of Indian Railways and carries around 15% of traffic. This railway transported thousands for the famous Kumbh Mela of 2019, runs the prestigious Vande Bharat (T-18) connecting Delhi with Varanasi, and Tejas Express (privately operated trains under the auspices of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) and significantly moves coal to thermal power houses up-country in northern and north-western India. I reckon, I have chakras under my feet; having worked on eight zonal railways. Perhaps possessing little or no political connections, I could never influence my postings to be in metro cities, which has given me the opportunity to see visages of India which I might have never seen otherwise. Indian Railways carries touch every corner of India. Thus a traveller, a tourist, someone smitten by wanderlust can choose to travel by a suburban train, high speed or an opulent train or even a humble ‘passenger’ train. This bouquet of services, perhaps no transportation service can provide. During the course of the voyage, a backpacker can veritably breathe wondrous India; from resplendent Rajasthan to verdant Assam, from God’s own country Kerala to the beaches of Goa, from the financial capital, Mumbai to the political capital, Delhi and to cultural and literary strongholds of Kolkata and Chennai. During the course of this peregrination a traveller will pass through bijou towns, hill stations, pilgrimage spots, unknown but fascinating places which dot the landscape of India. “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go, I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move,” wrote the voguish Scottish author and travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson. During the course of my travels I rediscovered my interest in reading and writing and connected with several well-known and many not so well-known known people of this remarkable land. Through their eyes, thoughts and outlook, I have attempted to understand India. My posting on North Eastern Railway provided me the opportunity to visit Ghazipur and relearn that Lord Cornwallis was laid to rest there, just as Paramahamsa Yogananda was born at Gorakhpur. Though I could not cover all these towering personalities, but perhaps the notes taken would compel me to write a sequel covering these iconic personalities. Yes, I have made innumerable trips to the Bangalore Ashram of the Art of Living and could have darshan of H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on several occasions. “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves,” uttered the enlightened soul Buddha. Ideas, idioms, ideologies and iterations all germinate and wander freely in our mind. A lesson I have learnt is not to be static, but to keep moving forward in pursuit thought word and deed, or else the mind is certain to become fossilised. This has been the most fascinating and interesting aspect of my professional and personal voyage. An individual must keep learning, unlearning and relearning. The four segments of this book are an attempt to showcase the ethos of India. I hope that as the reader navigates through the book, he or she is inspired to appreciate the beauty and diversity of our country. “If I were to ask under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India,” wrote the estimable German scholar Max Mueller.