Family vacations: Holidays = Fundays - Part 2

The Ahmedabad to Jamnagar train was a meter gauge train with compact first class compartment with slightly narrower aisle, seats and berths. The journey would generally take about 6-7 hours.
My parents were tea lovers so no sooner we settled down in our cabin, papa would order a tea tray and some snacks from the railway pantry service.

The whole exercise of this 'tea order to delivery to preparing, and relishing a cup of tea' itself was a fun to watch.
The pantry service guy would be a properly uniformed bearer displaying a generous amount of politeness- genuine, I must say.
The tea tray carried a whole paraphernalia- a Tea kettle, strainer, milk pot, sugar and ofcourse cup-saucer set with the spoons. All these hidden under a worn-out tea-cozy.
We will eagerly await those bread-butter toasts with cutlets- which invariably went cold (no wonder) by the time it reached us- but still we relished its chewy, salted taste - thanks to our overnight hunger.

During the journeys, there were subtle role reversals, for example, preparing tea would now be managed by Papa - so the tray contents will be made visible after lifting the tea-cozy. The two cups with a carefully measured spoons of sugar will be kept ready and the brewed tea will be strained with a steady hand and poured into those cups. The tea and the toasts always carried some amount of smokey flavour attributed to the use of wood/charcoal-based stoves (Sigri) for cooking.

One of the important stations on our way was Viramgam, The train would enter the Saurashtra region from this point. An important change over junction till late 80's. Its specialty were a masala tea and 'fafda', a deep fried, chickpea flour savoury. The tea would be extra sweet, boiled concoction of water, more of  milk, cardamom, clove, ginger and ofcourse the tea powder. The fafadas were accompanied with some fried chillies and spiced, finely shredded raw papaya. The passengers would be diving over each other lest the train would depart and they would miss this divine breakfast.

As the morning advanced, the train would make inroads into the arid zone and mind you it was hauled by mighty steam engine which spewed charcoal dust and particles as it whistled and chugged along the route. The seats inside the cabin required a frequent dusting as the thin film of black soot kept getting deposited.

This also had a similar 'black' effect on us. In no time, our faces will start resembling coal miners thanks to the engine soot and our overzealous attitude to keep popping our head to see the train take curves. My mother was not very keen to showcase our such pretty faces to our uncle when we alight at Jamnagar and thus there waited another ritual. In those first class bogeys, one of the washrooms had a shower. In fact we used to enjoy taking a shower bath in this slow moving and swaying train- we had to be careful though as there were instances of soap, bathing mugs and even napkins slipping away from our slippery hands onto the track ! The water would be quite hot, almost scalding as it would come straight from the tank above the bogey but the wind from the side windows would instantly cool it down by the time it splashed over our small frames.

Finally we would chug into Jamnagar railway station in a presentable way where my uncle and cousin would be ready to give us a hugging welcome. Aunty would be awaiting us at their home.

The home was a spacious bungalow with a small porch in the front and a backyard. The porch had a swing as well- a novelty for city dwellers like us.

Jamnagar stay used to be awesome with so many sweet memories..

Stay tuned !!

Family vacations: Holidays = Fundays - Part 1

As a child, the travel was fun, amusement and excitement-more so if it involved air travel and culminated into a family reunion.

The reasons were obvious; no responsibility to manage anything right from careful planning a holiday, booking those hard-to-get-tickets, packing those travel essentials, preparing food, carry out the actual travel and finally bring the family back to the safe environs of home- thanks to our parents for all these !

It was late sixties, and we were at Mumbai (then Bombay). My paternal uncle was based at Jamnagar and we had a large traditional house of our grandparents at Bhuj, Kutch, Gujarat. The Diwali vacation was the most sought after as the entire household would descend at Bhuj and celebrate the Diwali in a grand yet ceremonious way. 

The itinerary was simple- travel to Jamnagar by train, spend few days with uncle, aunty and their children (our cousins) and, hurrah, fly together to Bhuj - all 9 of us and then each family would commence their return journey once the vacation came to an end.

In this seemingly plain itinerary, there lay many a hidden surprises and uncertainties making these arduous journeys a fun to remember and cherish.

The excitement would start setting in once the monsoon begins to recede. After many postal exchanges with my uncle, grandfather and ofcourse our class teacher requesting for a tentative vacation dates; the actual travel dates would be fixed. We would be booked ourselves onto a morning train towards Gujarat departing from Mumbai Central terminus. The last few days would be passed in a frenzy of appearing for the mid-term examinations, dreaming of impeding holidays and a rushed packing. 
We used to stay at Shivaji Park, Dadar, a central suburb of Mumbai, thus getting a cab was generally not a big deal. Once at the first class compartment, our luggage will be quickly  unpacked and there would come out our journey clothes, towels, soaps, dishes, footwear and ofcourse the food. The earthen water pitcher would be firmly perched on one of the side tables to ensure its stability during that wobbly journey. 

The train would make a large number of stops thus the travel time was much longer than what it is currently- still I do not recall a single moment of boredom. There were no mobiles, laptops or i-pads but we had our collection of story books, cartoons and magazines to keep us occupied.

Food was another major activity occurring on an hourly basis! We kept feeding ourselves with some delicious home food (Thepla with chunda, chakri, potato wafers, sukhdi, gathia, salted peanuts, fruits) further supplemented by railway stations' food bites (allowed reluctantly by our mother!). At times, we wondered as to how much we managed to hog during the entire journey. 

We were forced to sleep away during the lazy afternoon while my mother enjoyed her otherwise hard-to-get siesta. The snake-ladder and Ludo were our companions till the golden evening descended. It was a snack and tea time.

Come night and a holdall will be opened up to prepare our cosy beds on those wide berths- I really miss those wide and airy first-class compartments.

We will switch off the lights and peep from the windows towards the starry sky, feel the the cool darkness,  caressing breeze that carried the fresh fragrance of moist vegetation, listen to the the harmonic oscillatory motion of train, experience the loneliness of non-decrepit station whenever the train made a brief halt and before we knew we slipped into a deep slumber.

The train would chug into Ahmedabad by early morning where there was a change of a train which will take us to Jamnagar by late afternoon. The whole train changing exercise itself was a challenge in itself considering that every other family will be hankering for those ever elusive coolies to haul away their cumbersome and numerous items of luggage to another platform to yet another waiting train. Mind you, there was neither the luggage with wheels nor anybody believed in travelling light so the coolies were the much sought after entities! Nonetheless, the howling fathers, screaming mothers dragging their half-awake kids did manage to reach the desired compartment after much jostle, push and pull.

         

how was the onward journey ? its even more riveting, so stay tuned !!