Daddy worked for Indian Railways in the Department of Telegraph (Northern Zone). He had a specific sense of loyalty and unseen passion for railways that seeped through his entire being and so did I due to my frequent visits to the local railway station back home in Amritsar (Punjab) with him as a little girl. Being a single parent, often daddy had to make special arrangements to take me along to office after my school hours if ever there were insufficient baby-sitting arrangements (as my mama had passed away long time ago), or if I ever put my foot down strongly enough to be with him for the rest of the evening, especially during his night rotations I would make life difficult for him on his weekends on, by making many excuses… simply telling him that I wouldn’t want to stay home with brothers because they’d  sleep so sound that they couldn’t  even know there were monsters under my bed, washroom and in the pitch dark tiny attic above the living room or sometimes I would simply complain that Gangaram (a lush green beautiful and wise parrot that resided  in a huge wrought iron cage that sat on the joint wall with the next door extended family) laughed n’ tweeted all night long and flapped his wings all night in vain in order to escape his man enforced confinement, hence disturbed my sleep.  Daddy was daddy and I was the love of his life, would agree as often as he possibly could.

As freshness of children lay in their capacity for wonder at the vividness and strangeness of any particles natural or man made alike, but what is fresh in them is that they still experience and believe in the power of repetition, from which their first sense of the power of mastery comes…Repetition! Probably, that was the psychological basis for the passion that I grew up with for anything and everything about railways….and I never got bored. I loved trains, any kinds of trains… the goods trains, passengers and luxury trains, the superfast, the then popular Indo-Pak Peace Train, heritage trains (rails kept to carry living history of rail traffic in order to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past), the new with electric engines and especially some old ones with steam engines blending their hot steam generously in the blue-black carbon of endless skies…and echoing restlessness and longing in the majestic loud whistles and elephantine walk on shining silver railway tracks were my all-time favourites. Perhaps I am the last little girl from my age who knew as much about the Metric Gauge System of Locomotive operations in India as her father, last little girl from that age who loved the theories behind diesel, steam and electric traction of trains, the last one may be who ever happened to view a live procession of special trains like The Fairy Queen, Saloon of Prince of Wales/King Edward the VII, Sir Roger Lumley Rail Car, Patiala State Monorail, Oudh & Rohilkhand Express, A Beyer Garratt  or Bengal/Nagpur built in Manchester, UK  by Beyer Peacock & Co and many more (now all in Railway Heritage Museums across India). I loved to watch the grayish white steam mingle into blue skies. I mostly went to the railway station to watch trains. They intrigued the mind of a young girl so very much back in those days. I loved the rhythm, the frequency, the thrill and above all the freedom of being suspended between two points in no man’s land yet the anxiety and purpose all well taken care of once one enters the train…running out for a quick cup of tea at unfamiliar stoppages, looking at and being with unfamiliar new people, watching them from the corners of eyes, talking to them and even sharing food with them, sometimes, carrying the loving weight of their memories upon one’s chest, looking outside the windows at unending corn and rice paddy, under the rainbow coloured flamed disc of the sun and a swarm of bees suckling the wild berries… the tall eucalyptus, gigantic oak groves and fluffy sycamores throughout the journeys. Daddy had trained me well. Every time he would take me along to the railway station he’d warn me religiously… where to sit and where to stand, which fences and florescent coloured lines not ever to cross and explain painstakingly not to waste scrap paper in his office and not to touch any equipment as the telegraph system was very sensitive and quick to respond.

The railway network established by the British is extensive and is one of their everlasting contributions to the culture and infrastructure of the country, something that I strongly believe that India could not have made possible in a long time without the British leadership, especially in the hilly regions of my country.

These massive structures of Railway Stations, just like any other buildings created by the British can be read like books, and how possessed these architects and labourers were with an infinite amount of patience and commitment towards their crafts. I always wondered about their insight, their capacity and curiosity to wonder, as I watched the high ceilings of daddy’s office, how nicely carved they were, the rustic maroon borders all across the beige office walls, the gigantically glorious ivory toned doors with multicoloured tiffany glass patchwork on them, magnificent flooring with intricate patchwork of beige, mustard and maroon tiles surrounding in unison the pale yellow coloured circles forming so many suns on the floor, suns that I would jump on and jump off from until late at night sometimes. Daddy’s office was no ordinary place in my eyes, not just a small unit that was a second home to a  close knit group of telegraphers but a Palace where I wasted scrap paper again and against daddy’s warnings, hopped from one chair to the other and sat for hours by finely painted glossy iron bars of giant size window panels facing platform # 1 and waved at almost each of the passing by train with a smile on my face, where I would sit down to savour the view …while daddy focused on his work, his office was his second home and so was mine…Platform # 1 was the front yard with endless visions and possibilities…

After playing and watching trains to my little heart’s desire I would finally settle down in my make shift bed which happened to be an over sized antique table right next to daddy’s old fashioned Devonshire desk, snug in my plaid blanket and two squishy pillows (that we would carefully tug along from home) and quietly observe and watch over admiringly the big filing cabinet with seven drawers and a big hutch. Although the underlying contours were quite simple—the nobs on the drawers were embellished with delicate ornaments. The serpentine turnings of the four legs were dramatic to my not so black and medium sized eyes, although thearabesque patterns resembling seaweed and spiders’ webs was not so British to me as daddy had mentioned, however I would read over and over again the big brass logo plated proudly on the centre of the bottom drawer… Gillow & Co (GB). Most people from various departments of Railways and visitors found my daddy’s office very noisy but I thought differently about the noise around clusters of colour coded telegraphic wires and brass coated related instruments. The continuity of sounds was subtle, repetitive…almost to a point where a monotonous jargon becomes music; daddy’s office was an undying symphony. I would eventually fall asleep listening to the telegraphic symphony, thinking about Great Britain and their masteries and achievements, occasionally thinking about our freedom fighters…divide and rule policy that I’d study during history class at school, Darjeeling Tea Estates that I hoped to see with my father someday…  while daddy would focus on work and meet deadlines…

Well, oh well!!! Life has come a long way! Department of Railway Telegraphy has been shut down  for more than two decades due to the herald of innovative telecommunication systems across the globe and my father is no more! I have not been able to travel back home for the last ten years now due to some temporary human limitations. Life is just life with many patches and sore cracks… however, my respite is always a blink away over a decent cup of tea… those moments come back to me for sure however briefly, like fireflies in the perfumed heat of summer night, basking in the glow of an imagined future, with purpose of impossible grandeur. One cannot devote one’s life to one’s past. However, often on days when I feel lonely, or slumped down into the thick foliage of everyday rut, I stroll down the memory lane on Platform # 1, where my childhood years are still abuzz with life…porters are running around with stacks of luggage on their wooden push carts, vendors are selling quick spicy snacks with all their might,  people are departing with heavy hearts or greeting merrily their loved ones, trains are ready to depart or slowing down to stop, some others trains are diverting towards shunting garages after a long haul of the day,  same skinny dark South Indian maintenance worker is singing a devotional song to himself as he lovingly waters the huge flower arrangements on the platform one by one by one…  With thoughts in my mind that there is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. Pathless paths have pleasure and sense of accomplishment in them even if they hit down one’s past. “Every day is a magic and no one is ever alone”, as my father said. “The need is to feel the inexplicable connectivity we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like”… whispers his voice to me, “the hidden presence keep us company”, he opined sometimes while talking about my mom. With these thoughts and many more I push open the magnificent door to daddy’s office. There, he sits smartly in his crisply ironed uniform… still focused on capturing and deciphering the telegraphic waves flowing with concrete information… I gently pull out his one and only fancy fountain pen, a Sheaffer Snorkel, from the pocket of his shirt and start to scribble carelessly on scrap paper. During moments when I want to pervade the domain of any practical/painful speculation and defuse myself in peace through channels of an era bygone I visit my father in his office, since it is okay to be mindful to create a realm of one’s own, it is okay to create a reality in a peaceful illusion. The telegraphic waves splash my entire being just to say again and again, “Welcome back Anoop”… while daddy runs after his twelve years old daughter quite playfully to take his only fountain pen back!!!

– Anoop Kaur Babra