Ruskin Bond (Ed) - The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories

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Ruskin Bond

Indian Railways are a marvel.  They criss-cross across our vast country and take you to nooks and crannies you never thought existed.  They have been transporting people from one point to another ever since 1853, even though the start was a modest run from Bombay to Thane.

I remember traveling with my family from Jamnagar to Delhi during the 60s.  We used to travel unreserved.  Being a large crowd, we would spread durries on the wooden benches and bag a compartment. Our bogie would travel from Jamnagar to Mehsana. At Mehsana we had a longish break and our bogie would go for a shunting and get attached to a train that was traveling to Delhi. We would embark on the train from Jamnagar at around 5 PM, spend two nights in the train and in the morning of the 3rd day, we would be at New Delhi Station.

The steam engine would pump soot into the air and my hair would be coated with it.  There was no chance of a bath, which would come only after we reached my cousin's house in Delhi.  There were high points of the travel we looked forward to. Dahi Bade at Abu Road, Rabri at some other station. We carried water in a small earthenware surahi.  There were no bottles of Bisleri, and we filled up the Surahi at any Railway Station that was handy.

Those days are gone. Now I turn up my nose at stinky poo Railway bathroom, don't drink anything but Bisleri and avoid local food.  If the travel is likely to be more than a day's worth, I look for flights. Yet, on my way to Delhi on the Shatabdi, the train often stops at a small station in Haryana called Diwana, waiting for a signal.  It is not a scheduled stop and I never see a soul there.  It is a single brick building built smack in middle of a farm.  It always brings back memories of sleepy stations that seem almost ghost-like from my childhood train travel.

Being Indians, I am sure almost all of us have traveled by railway, over long distances or short. There are many among us who love the slow chug chug of train travel.

In this collection of Railway stories curated and edited by Ruskin Bond, he brings us the best of the lot.  The first story is culled from Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. In 1875 Phileas Fogg passes through India in his quest to cross the world in eighty days.  He is let down badly by the Railways in India, but manages to hire elephants to continue his journey. There are two stories by Rudyard Kipling, one by Flora Annie Steel and some stories by anonymous authors, and one by J.W, Best. These stories are listed under Part I which are stories from the Pre-Independence era.

In the Post-Independence section, we have stories by Jim Corbett, Khuswant Singh, Ruskin Bond himself, Manoj Das, Intizar Husain, Satyajit Ray, Bill Aitkin, R.K. Laxman, Victor Banerjee and Manojit Mitra.

When I completed the Pre-Independence section, I thought, "There goes the best of it. Surely the Post Independence stories will not be as good."  Happily, I was proved wrong.  All the stories, start to finish are delightful.  I had no idea Victor Banerjee wrote such lovely short stories as well.  Bill Aitken's description of the POW (Palace on Wheels) is hilarious.  Khushwant Singh's story, Mano Majra Station is taken from his chilling novel, Train to Pakistan.

Ruskin Bond's preface to the book called Soot Gets in Your Eyes is alone worth the price of the book. At Rs.250/- so much goodness is a steal.  

Khushwant Singh - Delhi A Novel

Khushwant Singh
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Delhi A novel starts with the protagonist, A Sikh Journalist, returning to Delhi from abroad.  He is loafing around, visiting his cronies in Coffee House, going around the city when he is asked to escort around a woman who has come down from London.  She has to look over the architecture of Delhi.  Our hero almost has an affair with her.

However, his one enduring affair is with Bhagmati, a hijra whom he had once saved when she had fainted by the side of the road. Once on a visit to Shamsi Talab, he comes across a stone inscribed with the name of Musaddi Lal, devotee of Nizamuddin and resident in the era of Balban. In the next chapter, we zoom into the life of Musaddi Lal in 1280 and thereabouts.  Musaddi Lal was a kayasth whose father was a scribe in the court of Balban.  When his father died, he was offered the same job.  He became a disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin and hobnobbed with Amir Khusrau as well.  The life in that era is described beautifully with Musaddi Lal as the narrator.

From here the novel takes turns describing successive eras (with big jumps in time - it would have become a huge tome otherwise) and coming back to present time (which is somewhere from 1970's to 1984). From Balban we jump to a first hand account of the massacre led by Taimur.  Then comes the very touching story of Jaitoo, the Mazhabi Sikh who had the sorrowful privilege of carrying the sheesh of Guru Tegh Bahadur to Anandpur Sahib after he was executed by Aurangzeb. Through the eyes of Jaitoo, we learn how life was like amongst the very poor during the reign of Mughals.

After this comes an account from the pen of Aurangzeb Alamgir himself.  How he found himself sidelined by his father who favored Dara Shukoh. How he tricked and killed his brother and landed himself on the throne of Delhi.  Nadir Shah relates how he came to Delhi and was captivated by a concubine.

Mir Taqi Mir lived from 1722 to 1810. He tasted everlasting fame, but had to live in penury for most of his life, like many other great artists did.  The chapter where Mir describes his life and time is one of the best in this novel.  It sheds light not only on the life of Mir, but also the tumultuous times he lived in.

From Mir we go on to the events of 1857 which are described through the eyes of Alice Aldwell.  She was the daughter of a Kashmiri Muslim girl and an Englishman.  She shed her Anglo-Indian identity by marrying a 50 year old Englishman Aldwell.  She has to scrimp and scrounge to crawl up in the English world. Just when she has made it, the mutiny breaks out.  The English identity that she had built up so painstakingly is now shattered. Along with Alice Aldwell's account, we are also treated to the views of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the reluctant leader of the Mutiny.  We also go on to read about Nihal Singh, the Sikh orderly under the command of Major Hodson.

In the next historical segment we get a glimpse into the building of the Lutyen's Delhi.  For this who can be better than an eyewitness in the author's own family.  His father was at the forefront of action when Delhi was named, for the final time, the Capital of India.  To the author's credit, he spares no criticism, even of his own forebears and gives us a candid account of the way contracts were handed out.  How his father and grandfather maintained contacts, bribed, presented inflated bills and made a lot of money.  He also lauds them for their thrift and hard work that was also necessary.

The last historical chapter is about Ram Rakha, who becomes an RSS activist in Delhi for the lack of any other employment.  He has to instigate violence against Muslims in 1947-48.  He is also required to spy on Mahatma Gandhi as he fasts.

From the dark times of 1947 we jump to 1984.  Starting from Operation Blue Star in June to the Sikh Massacre in November, when humankind showed that it was not civilized yet.

The book does a very good job of traversing through 700 years of history of Delhi.  The best part is, of course, describing the events through the eyes of a contemporary.  I like the accounts of ordinary citizens much better.  In the story of Musaddi Lal, he does not like Amir Khusro initially. Older and mellower years later, they become good friends.  In the later story of Jaitu the untouchable, we are given a piteous account of how they live.  After he carries the head of Guru to Anandpur Sahib he is known as Rangreta Jaita.

The author does a very good job of getting into the skin of the characters and makes the era they lived in come alive. He lets the warts of his characters show, be they Kings, Commoners or Poets.  Bhagmati, the hijra the main protagonist is enamored of, is the emblem of corruption that Delhi has sunk into.  There is even a story in the book, in the form of a joke that foretold that hijras would inherit Hindustan in the year 1947.

Khushwant Singh claims that he spent twenty-five years writing this book.  I can imagine the research it entailed.  I remember reading an extract from the book that was published in a magazine. It was about Nadir Shah and his tryst with Noor, the concubine.  Typically the focus in the press was on the salacious bits of the book.  When I read the book first about a decade ago, I was very impressed.  I liked the juxtaposition of modern and ancient times. I liked the way he does not mince words when indicting the actions of people throughout history, whether they were Sikhs, Hindus or Muslims, even Christians.  They were merely frail humans who wronged each other grievously.

In general I am not fond of Khushwant Singh's books.  He claims to be irreverent, and that is a good thing, but the substance of his books was rather thin.  But with Delhi A Novel, he has come up trumps because his subject is so sound.

Khushwant Singh and Humra Qureshi - The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous

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Khushwant Singh belonged to the upper echelon of India.  He was the son of Sobha Singh, a rich building contractor of Delhi.  It was rumoured that most of Connaught Place belonged to him.

Khushwant Singh studied in the best of schools in undivided India and completed his law studies in King's College in London.  He practised law in Lahore for some years before joining Foreign Service.  Later, he moved to journalism.

His elite education ensured that he was already networked with the top people in India.  Hence, he is well placed to write about all the famous people of the past century.  His USP was writing about people with frankness and refusing to pander to them.  This won him many enemies and he was as reviled as he was feted.

It is a fact that his books have sold very well despite not being always very edifying. The only book of his that I have truly liked is Delhi, his tribute to the grand old city.

In this book, he writes portraits of many luminaries of India and its neighbouring countries.  He has profiled Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, General Tikka Khan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jarnail Singh Bhindrawalan, Giani Zail Singh, Indira Gandhi, Krishna Menon, Amrita Sher-Gil and Bhagat Puran Singh among others.

Even though the profiles are not always very detailed, they do throw up an interesting angle from time to time.  For instance, he describes the difference in viewpoints of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi.  MA Jinnah was, according to Khushwant Singh, inclined towards secular politics.  He was all for keeping religion and politics unmixed. Also, he wanted to keep voting and governing very upper class.  Only those who paid taxes deserved to have a say in running the country.  When Mahatma Gandhi arrived from South Africa, he mixed religion and politics.  He also involved the common man in the political process.  He preferred Nehru among the other leaders and Jinnah was forced to become the voice of the Muslims.

Khushwant Singh is particularly scathing in his dismissal of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lord Mountbatten.  He pussyfoots around Sanjay Gandhi whom he admired a lot at one time and cites loyalty to a true friend as a reason for not bad-mouthing him.  He has mixed opinions about Indira Gandhi, in any case his profile on her is not very exhaustive.  I liked his portraits of Giani Zail Singh, Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale, and Bhagat Puran Singh. The profile of Krishna Menon is perhaps the most candid of the lot.

I gleaned from most of his profiles that politicians, from the time of Gandhi, used religion to whip up hysteria in masses in favor of a particular political party.  They played on religious identities to draw the attention of the people. (Giani Zail Singh is credited with whipping up Sikh fervor to counter the Akalis which ultimately led to Bhindrawale.) This can explain the state our politics is in at the moment.  People are pushed, like MA Jinnah was, into retreating into a niche of labels.  You are either a Liberal or a Right-winger, a Commie or a Congressi.

The book can be taken as a light manual of some prominent personalities of our region.  There is humor, sex and politics in the book.  The usual combination that Singh favored.

Khushwant Singh - Sunset Club

About a week ago, I was loitering in Sector 17, whiling my time away, window shopping, waiting for a friend to arrive.  I usually stop by at the bookseller that spreads his 'wares' on the pavement just outside the Mochi showroom.  One time I was lucky to get a one volume, second hand, prime condition set of Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien for just Rs.125/-.  This time round my eye fell on Sunset Club, a book by Khushwant Singh.  I leafed through the book and liked what I saw, so I picked it up.

Khushwant Singh wrote this book about the events that took place in the year 2009, seen through the eyes of three old friends who make it a point to meet every evening in Lodhi Garden.  There is Pandit Preetam Sharma, an Oxford Graduate, retired from Civil Services, a bachelor who lives in Khan Market with his sister.  There is Nawab Barkatullah Baig Dehlavi an affluent businessman who lives in Nizamuddin with his devoted wife.  Last but not the least there is Sardar Boota Singh, a widower and a retired newspaperman (ahem!) who lives close to Sharma.  These three men like taking a walk in Lodhi Garden every evening and have taken to congregating on a bench right opposite the Bara Gumbad.  In their honor the bench has been renamed as 'Boodha Binch'.

There is one chapter for each month which recounts the political happenings, weather, and whatever going on in the lives of the three men.  The men talk, argue and reminiscence about their lives.  They talk about politics, love, women, nature and of course, their ailments.  The book starts on 26th January 2009 and ends, a bit sadly, on 26th January 2010.  (For this reason, it is fortuitous that I am writing this on 26th January as well.) There is not really much happening here, but the events are an interesting mishmash of the political scene and weather during the year 2009.  Khushwant Singh throws in a bit of religion, some lovely poetry and nice descriptions of trees and flowers.  In fact, the book is quite like his column.

I enjoyed his book Delhi very much which I reviewed on mouthshut.com.  I have pasted the writing onto my blog here.  This book is not a patch on Delhi, but yet, if you compare it with the kind of stuff being printed these days, it is miles ahead.  KS's language is pretty non-decorative, but has the advantage of being direct and functional.  The poetry he has picked to describe seasons is lovely.

The autumn comes, a maiden fair

In slenderness and grace,

With nodding rice stems in her hair,

And lilies in her face...

-Kalidas

More Reviews More Books

I have been lax in reading, lax-er in reviewing books.  I had picked up Dan Brown's Deception Point on my last foray into Browser, Sector 8. Chandigarh, a private library I am a member of.  Along with it, I took 'Yes Prime Minister' of the famous TV series and Sikhs a book by Khushwant Singh. I had enjoyed his book Delhi very much.  It was nice mish-mash of history with fiction thrown in about the unparalleled and grand city (previously, now it is a state) of Delhi.

The latter two books are still being read by me.  I raced through Deception Point.  It had a good start.  It is election time in US of A.  The contending candidate for presidency, Senator Sedgewick Sexton is a jerk, we realise as we get to know how his daughter views him.  Rachel Sexton is an intelligence analyst for NRO, who soon finds herself embroiled in a series of events that find her nearly freezing to death in the Arctic, and back to Washington DC, to find out who did it.

Nothing wrong with the pace of the thriller.  Its Dan Brown, he knows how to pump the adrenaline into inert bodies lying on the couch and flipping pages of his book.  Its just the premise, finding alien rock with evidence of life stamped all over it is surely a biggie.  But then, the claim fizzles out faster than fizz fizzles out of a coke bottle left open.  The mystery is, who is behind the killings and why.  The suspense ends in a supposed twist, but the twist is not too well qualified with good reasons.  That was the deception point for me.  I must say Dan Brown does better with his ecclesiastical mysteries and his symbologist Dr. Robert Langdon, even if he seems to skedaddle around the world a little to much.

My old old friend, (she is not old, its just that we go way back) Smita of Bookslifeandmore has picked up several formidable challenges for the year 2012.  I wish her all the best, and choose for myself, admittedly the wimpiest of the challenges that seems do-able to me.  Here goes - Amen.