01 The Beginning
Ravi’s Diary | Chapter 01
My temperament is that of a Nomadic nature or the perfect word in Hindi is yayavar, and I have a map of Indian railway, with my travels marked in red (below). What I will be sharing with you here are stories — of my travel and social experiences of life, with value addition of knowledge. So let’s start with my first solo journey.
Year 1976, I was just 11 years old, a student of class 6th, a hosteler studying in Sainik School, Rewa. During my summer vacation, I took a bus from Rewa, Madhya pradesh to ‘Zero Road Bus Stand’, Allahabad (current Prayagraj), Uttar pradesh. From this bus stand I then made my way to Allahabad railway station and purchased a current ticket from the window, using ‘Railway concession form’ issued by my school, yes, back then it was a ‘thing’, which used to provide me a rough 40 to 60 percent discount on the ticket. That evening I boarded the general compartment of 12Dn Express and reached Patna around two in the night.
Those were the days when even landline phone facility was rare. So no one at home knew that I would be coming. That night from the station I took a pedal rickshaw to reach home. To my surprise the city seemed more silent than normal. On the way a policeman stopped us and enquired about how I entered an area under curfew. To which the eleven year old me confidently replied, that he should be asking this question to the Rickshaw Puller instead. As an identity I showed my sainik school ID card, after which the policeman turned towards the rickshaw puller asking him if he was in the right mind to bring a school kid to curfew area. The policeman continued rebuking the Rickshaw puller about the missing headlight and papers for his rickshaw. Those days kerosene headlight was compulsory in rickshaws. He, on missing them both, was asked to give two sets of 50 push-ups on a raised platform in the middle of the square, as a punishment. After this the Rikshawala was asked to drop me home with the utmost care, as I am from sainik school and if anything happens to me the President of India will give him a death sentence. I’m not quite sure if it was the fear of a ‘made up’ death sentence or just the long tiring interrogation with the policeman, but When I reached home and went inside for a brief second to get the money to pay the man, on my return he was nowhere to be found.
From what I remember, I did ask the policeman what the curfew was for and he had told me it was a result of the riots that broke out as a college girl lost her life by being crushed by some municipal sewer pipes that were being transported from one place to another.
Another thing I had always been very curious about was the name of the Allahabad bus station later I came to know that the name “zero road” bus stand is the location of the meridian, passing through Allahabad at 82.5 degree east (of Greenwich Meridian) longitude. From here the Britisher in 1905 adopted the international standard time zones corresponding to the time zone for the country at 5 hours and 30 minutes in advance of GMT.
Regards
Ravi
