By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD
In this fourth episode of the reminiscences of my rail journeys from the past, I would like to point out that I am finding it rather difficult to stop my ramblings on this topic, for the simple reason that many readers have kept urging me to write more on the same subject, which seems to be as dear to them, as it is to me.
Going by this observation, it is perhaps rightly said that rail travel has a very unique kind of romance, that comes attached to no other mode of travel, although travelling itself, by any means, happens to be a very romantic activity.
This is also why hundreds of books have been written by avid and even intrepid rail travellers from across the world, with a good many of them having seen runaway success, still remaining best-sellers, running into many reprints, over many years. And, according to me, the one author who undisputedly rides on the crest of this wave of popularity, is Paul Theroux, the now eighty-five-year young novelist and travel writer, among whose many books, The Great Railway Bazaar, is the undisputed magnum opus.
He wrote this book, which has now become a classic in this genre, when he relocated to London in 1972, after an admirable saga of travels and adventures across the world and this book happens to be a travelogue of his epic journey from Great Britain to Japan and back.
After its runaway success, he wrote at least half a dozen other travel books, with each one being just as good as the other. What makes his books unique is the very candid and extremely humorous narration of his observations from train windows and his encounters with his fellow travellers and the people of the towns and cities he has visited. He has had his share of controversies too.
One of his books was banned by the Singapore government for thirty years and all his books were banned by the apartheid government of South Africa, when they seemed to cast those two countries in poor, if not completely bad light.
The man has collaborated with photographer Steve McCurry of National Geographic- fame, who has lent some of his most iconic images to a good many of the writer’s books. The closest Indian equivalent of Paul Theroux is good old Ruskin Bond, who in his own way of nostalgic storytelling, has made an admirable and very well-deserved place for himself in travel writing, not only in our country but also across the world. He too remains high in the list of my most loved travel writers.
A third but surprisingly much lesser-known travel writer is Bishwanath Ghosh, who has authored about half a dozen highly readable books, with Chai Chai, being the one on rail travel, which I am rereading right now, mind you, concurrently, along with one of his other books Aimless in Banaras, which is about his wanderings in the city which he first visited, to cremate his mother, at the famed Manikarnika Ghat.
Yes, I have this rather odd habit of reading up to three and sometimes even four books, simultaneously, with one lying in my library, living room, bedroom and my car too. Believe me, they live in peace and harmony with each other and their vastly wide-ranging storylines do not confuse me one bit, while certainly quadrupling my reading pleasure!
Now, leaving books on rail travel aside and returning back to my own rail travels, I must say that my memories have remained so pleasant and vivid, that I can just never stop reminiscing about them, even if I am not narrating them before anyone. Not only trains but also something as ordinary as railway platforms, have been the source of endless delight and fascination for me from the days of my childhood.
Waiting eagerly for a train to arrive would always be the most exciting kind of waiting and its distant whistle or vision, as it approached the platform, would always make my heart leap with joy. And, after this wait, my joy would double if I could find myself a window seat, something I still strive to do, in whatever mode of travel I take, be it train, cab, coach or plane.
I feel aghast if not completely outraged, when I often see travellers who ask for and take window seats, only to lean back and doze off, even before the journey begins. I wonder of what good a window seat is, if it does not become a window to the world, for someone who is privileged to sit in it?
Even after I had finished growing up and was done with my necessary quota of rail travel that arose out of sheer need, the lure of trains and railway stations has not left me. In my days as a medical student at Gulbarga (Kalaburagi), I used to spend much time on the railway platform, even when I was not going anywhere. Because photography was my most passionate hobby, late at night, after my studies were over, I used to develop all my films myself in the makeshift darkroom I had made in my bathroom.
And while waiting for them to dry, I would walk to the railway station, a mile away, which was the only place where I could pick up something to munch on in the middle of the night, to ease my untimely hunger pangs. During the progress of this process, I developed a very close friendship with another senior medical student, Pradyumna Kumar Kakade who was a wizard in photochemistry and Ashok Vaidikar, a very talented artist and photographer, whose family owned the Chirayu Photo Studio in Gulbarga. I am still in constant touch with Ashok and on a recent visit to Mumbai for a medical conference, my wife and I had even been invited for dinner at his flat in Navi Mumbai, where we spent a happy time, which we both wished would never end.
We regularly exchange notes about cameras and lenses and the latest advances in photography, when we are not reminiscing about the good old times and it is one of the greatest pleasures, for both of us.
Kakade, however, is sadly out of sight and out of touch too and all my efforts to trace him, despite much help from Instagram and Facebook, have been in vain. I have finished calling up and speaking to every doctor with the surname Kakade in Satara, which was where he hailed from. Though he was the son of a Judge there and very surprisingly, despite Satara being a small city, no one there seems to be knowing the present whereabouts of his family. I am hoping against hope that my friend will somehow chance upon this article, through the world-wide net and send me a mail sometime. Yes, that has happened on a few occasions in the past, after I started writing this column.
After making these two friends in Gulbarga very soon after I began my life there, my visits to the railway platform became more frequent because now I did not have to spend time just while waiting for my films to dry but also because I had at least one of them to discuss photography at length, long into the nights. The Gulbarga station was and still is, a hub through which all the trains connecting the three peninsular States with the rest of the country, especially Bombay, pass round-the-clock. And so, its platform, although threadbare, had a busy canteen, the contract for running which seemed to have been given on a permanent lease to the same family over many generations.
I say this because the man managing it during my time there used to tell me that his family had been holding the contract from the time of his great-grandfather and my friends in Gulbarga, now tell me, almost fifty years later, that his grandson is still managing it! Perhaps because of its ancient lineage, that canteen that functioned day and night, was the place where the best tasting bread-omelette could be had, round-the-clock, come rain, shine or even curfew!
And, if you were a little bored of eating this same fare, in the same place, there always was Sham Café, just next to the exit of the railway station, which seemed to have evolved in a huge stone structure, that was most certainly a tomb from the times of the Bahamani Sultans. Its rather eerie history notwithstanding, that was a place, where if you were not scared of resident ghosts, you could, till long past midnight, hope to get freshly fried Mirchi Bajjis and plain fried eggs, sunny side up or well done, depending on your preference, but always sprinkled liberally, with red hot chili powder.
In this matter somehow, you just had no choice because what seemed too hot to handle for you, seemed to be the mildest fare the cook there could think of serving, to hold on to the respectability of that place! That was the fiery stuff over which my two friends and I used to sit for hours and lose our sleep, most happily, while discussing nothing but photography.
Thankfully and very surprisingly, none of us became permanent insomniacs, over six long years, which is perhaps a miracle, the reason for which, medical science has not been able to explain!
e-mail: kjnmysore@rediffmail.com
This post was published on March 15, 2026 6:05 pm