North to East by train

It was the summer of 1961 when we bid adieu to Jammu with a heavy heart. Lt Col Gurmohan Singh, our dad, had preceded us on posting to Narangi (Guwahati), then an elephant-infested tented camp that is today a huge cantonment.

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The officers’ bus transported us to Pathankot, the rail head. A night in the transit camp and the next morning, we were herded on to the platform — mom, four siblings, two dogs and sepoy Sher Singh, dad’s orderly.

We sought out our first class bogey in the train, a six-berth attached toilet cubicle with two doors on both sides and four windows. A small door led into a pigeon-hole washroom.

Our boxes and luggage went under the seats and some were piled on the upper berth, the dogs were deposited in the train kennel, part of the guard’s bogey at the rear.

After ushering us, Sher Singh bid farewell as he was to return to Jammu. We were on our own. The steam engine bellowed soot and whistled before slowly moving on, much to our excited relief. Thus began our long journey from the North to the far East.

At Jalandhar, the railways sent us an ice box. It soon cooled our cubicle like a modern-day air-conditioner. Our first trans-shipment was at Lucknow, where we put our luggage in the cloak room, dogs in a kennel and spent a night with one of dad’s friends.

From Lucknow, again in a six-berth bogey with an ice box full of Dussehri mangoes and muskmelons, we set out for Barauni. My sister and I were tasked to take the two dogs out whenever the train halted for long.

The landscape that flashed past was constantly changing, from the undulations of Pathankot, plains and fields of Punjab and UP to the gradually barren stretches of Bihar. We remember crossing the Ganga which seemed like an ocean to us kids.

At Barauni, a very interesting shift took place, from broad gauge to meter gauge rake. A night in the retiring room was spent while being guarded by the two Alsatians as dad had warned of the thugs around Barauni.

Next morning, the rake was in place, a smaller cubicle, as if designed for midgets, greeted us.

Late next morning, we landed at Pandu on the northern bank of Brahmaputra. Dad was there and took charge, our luggage was carted to the main deck of the steamboat. The huge unwieldy platform took about an hour and half to load up. It hooted loudly before slowly moving northward. The Brahmaputra was so wide that one could not see the far bank till well half way through. An hour or more later, we anchored at the Amingaon railway station where transport awaited us.

It was on the sixth day after setting out from Jammu that we reached our destination at Guwahati. For me it was like the ‘discovery of India’, a journey that will remain with me to the very last.