Station names!

 Back then, there were no Self-Help books to tutor you on “speed-reading” techniques. You learnt to read quickly through a simpler method- by reading the names of stations as the train sped by! With elbows anchored on the train’s window-sill, forehead pressed to the window-bar, you had just a few seconds to read the station’s name. And if you had an elder sister on the adjoining window seat, it made for healthy and at times, ugly competition! 

The erstwhile Bombay to Madras rail route was filled with station names that were a mouthful! You grandly announced- “Yeraguntla” and “Tadipatri”, “Guntakal” and “Hadapsar” as the trains whizzed past them. Till the mid-1980s, the station boards had stayed unchanged for well over a century. You could faintly pick anglicized names like “Poona” and “Dhond” over which the new coat of paint had the revised spellings as “Pune” and “Daund”.

It was as if a mysterious world existed behind these stations you would never know. As you traveled through the Western Ghats, you wondered how “Monkey Hill” got its name! When it came to “Hotgi” and “Chiksugar”, it was as though they concealed a culinary past! 

Of particular interest was the station “Gooty”. You felt goofy to imagine that Gooty’s brother was perhaps Ooty! There were stations that had a special mention on their boards that announced- “Alight here to visit this ancient shrine”. You wondered if this advertisement had compelled a passenger to make a life changing decision to suddenly disembark from the train to explore these exotic places.

No station did you look forward to more than this one- “Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta” in Andhra Pradesh. How could a station have such a big name? Imagination ran riot- how the sign-board artist had written half the name and fretted when he found no room to fit the rest! And how a tourist from outside India would stumble over the name, getting to “ven-kata” and thereafter, throwing his hands up in despair! 

A particularly delightful stretch was the one from Arakkonam to erstwhile Madras Central. On most occasions, the train was late by the time it hit this corridor. Like the proverbial hare-and-tortoise tale, the engine woke up from slumber and showed a sudden intent to make up for lost time. As the train raced away, it kicked up a cloud of dust over which you read the polysyllabic names- Tiruvallur and Villivakkam, Perambur and Ambattur. Just before Madras Central, came “Basin Bridge”- with its quaint English sounding name. 

They ask “What’s in a name?” But in the final analysis, we are left with just these names and through them connect to a distant past filled with fond memories!