Recollected landscapes

A settlement. A river. Agriculture. Travel and transportation. Kinship. Childhood journeys and memories. All come together to form a ‘recollected landscape’, a re-opening of a ‘remembered mental map.’ Geography is also about places inside us.

When I was a lad of age in the single digits, almost every year, I would travel with my uncle to visit my paternal grandparents. They lived in a village called Jiyapuram in Tiruchchirapalli (Tiruchi) district, Tamil Nadu. This was in the 1960s. Slightly before you were born!

We always traveled by Island Express that went from Bangalore City to Mettupalayam. A few (I think 3 or 4) coaches bound for Tiruchi Junction were attached to this train. Booking tickets was a very laborious process consisting of filling out forms, standing in queues for hours on end, anxieties over proper markings on the tickets, and so on. The tickets were small 1” x 2” cardboard things with the origin and destination names, coach class (ours was always 3rd class) printed on one side, in barely legible color in English and Hindi. On the back, the passenger details were written: name, age, gender. As a lad of single-digit age, I was a “half-ticket” — only the price was half, not the actual cardboard!

The oddity of this train always fascinated me. Pulled by a thunderous behemoth engine (WP class, it was called), it was always late leaving Bangalore. Scheduled departure time 6:20pm. It would go “forward” up to Jolarapettai Junction. Then go “backward” to Erode Junction, then “forward” again.

At Erode, around 2 am, the Tiruchi coaches were shunted off to another platform to be attached to the Erode-Tiruchi train which left at about 4 am or so. I don’t remember because I used to be more or less zonked out! But the vendors shouting “kaappi kaappi chaya chaya” and the smell of steam and coal smoke from nearby engines are forever associated with Erode Junction for me. We all have such associations with places in our lives. Some associations, for some reason, stick in our minds.

As we left Erode in the darkness, I would listen for the sound the train made as it crossed Kaveri. That sound is always associated with the Tiruchi trip for me, because Kaveri was my river.

At about 6:30 am, we would pull into the side line in Kulittalai, a small station — one of the few small on that route that had a siding. There, we would wait for another train to pass in the opposite direction. This was usually about a 35-minute wait.

Of course, you want to know where this and some of the other places are. Here is a map:

Passengers would get down, cross the tracks to the platform, and head to the restaurant. The restaurant had all the necessities for a good breakfast. Not just the food items!

At the taps, you could wash your face and feet, and clean your teeth with the Gopal toothpowder they provided (toothbrush your own, but optional). After you were down washing up, you could reach over to a brass plate on which were two small heaps of powders: kumkumam (vermilion, red) in one heap, and vibhuti (ash) in another. You applied each as you desired … forehead, neck, etc.

And THEN, you ordered breakfast. Most popular items were idlis with sambar and chutney served on fresh green banana leaves, no plates! Then south Indian filter coffee — all piping hot. All quite leisurely.

Once the train going in the opposite direction had gone, we would continue. For the rest of the way, none of the small stations had a siding and the next major station was Tiruchi Fort.

Once we left Kulittalai, the train would go at a good pace. Uncle and I would stand at the door of the coach and watch the landscape go by. First one door then the opposite door, in turn. By this time, the early morning sun would be bathing the countryside in golden sunlight.

On our right would be a canal (vaaikkaal in Tamil), followed by alternating fields of rice and bananas. Their green colour was special in the early morning golden sunlight and the way the rice plants swayed gently in the breeze is one of my favourite sights even now.

On our left, the same landscape existed, more or less. Beyond that, the road that ran parallel to the railway track. After the road there was a high embankment (usually called levee in geographical terms). On the other side of that embankment was the wide river — Kaveri — also running parallel to us.

At every “level” crossing gate, you would see people returning from their early morning bath in the river, looking freshly laundered, as it were. Many women would also be carrying pots of water from the river. Very few households had piped water; two or three public hand pumps were the only piped water. Most other fresh water came from Kaveri or wells in individual houses. The wells were usually quite plentifully supplied because of the proximity to the river.

We would reach Jiyapuram around 8am. Assorted relatives would be at the station to receive us and help us carry the luggage home, a short walk from the station.

Once there, I would grab my towel, a change of clothes, a bar of soap, and a toothbrush and paste, and run with my cousins to the river — a mere 3 minutes away by our running speed. There, we would splash about, dip, and make loud noise for a good hour or so and return home ravenously hungry.

The house was an old structure with very high ceilings (good for keeping the place cool in the summers); the central hall had a thatch roof. The aroma of the fuelwood-fired stove cooking up a delicious meal would reach us as we reached home. Grandmother and aunt would have made an amazing meal for us. We would all pig out and sit around yakking and making noise. Then lunch in the afternoon, and at about 4:30pm back to the river until dusk.

I last visited the place in 1980. What is the place like now? If I go back there now, what differences would I see? How much would I have to update my mental map of the place from 1980 to now, 35 years later?

Things to do? Well, recapture your own favorite journeys to your favorite places. Tell those stories in any way you like … prose story (this format), poetry, art, dance, any way you like.

You will be expressing a very personal and powerful aspect of your geography. And that is precious!

A version of this article appears in the Deccan Herald Student Edition in November 2015.

(Featured image: Courtesy, Google Maps)