Saturday, 28 May 2011

My Train to Pakistan 2004 - Part 2 - The Journey Outbound



Attari International Railway Stationn attracts more flies than all the Punjabs put together could have.




Previously published at The Chowk:-
http://www.chowk.com/Views/India/Train-to-Pakistan-2004-The-Journey-Outbound

and Outlook:-
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?223744

Condensed extract from an Indian Railway (IR) and Pakistani Railway (PR) joint announcement, issued on 15th of January 2004:-
The special train no. 4001 (-Attari non-stop) will depart from  Jn. on every Wednesday and Sunday at 9.00 p.m. to reach Attari at 4.40 a.m. the next day of its departure. In return direction the special train no. 4002 (Attari- non-stop) will run from Attari station from 15.1.2004 on every Thursday and Monday at 8.05 p.m. to reach Jn. at 3.35 a.m. the next day of its departure.
The 4607Attari- Samjhota Express will depart from Attari at 1.30 p.m. on every Thursday and Monday from 15-1-2004. In the return direction the 4608 -Attari Samjhota Express will depart from  at 8.00 a.m. on every Thursday and Monday from 15-1-2004 to and reach Attari at 12.30 p.m.
The Attari special Express train will have four second sleeper class, ten general second class and two brake vans coaches. The Samjhota Express will have one second sleeper, seven general second class and two luggage van coaches.
Midnight 14th/15th April’04
Prologoue do you  trains too? I could never sleep on them. When I was young, and growing up in the Raj railway town of Jamalpur on Eastern Railway, all full of King’s Road and Queen’s Street and Gymkhanas, high points were when we would manage to ride on foot-plates. Memorizing time-tables was the equivalent of an addictive video game for us then. My dear friend Deepak Banerjee, who will come into this report towards the end again, can, till today, have long and insightful arguments with me about the subject, as well as our respective ancestors, and we both enjoy them as much as we do our Old Monk and fresh lime.
There is more than one route by train from  to Amritsar. And all Airbus-320 aircraft have single axle bogeys, except those with Indian Airlines.
Sentiments the old Frontier Mail, which used to go all the way from Peshawar to, is now renamed Golden Temple Express. It crosses the Yamuna River at, heads for Saharanpur/Jagadhri through Western U.P., crosses the Yamuna again at, where else, Yamuna Nagar, then joins the Calcutta-Moradabad Northern line to re-connect at Ambala. Other trains, like the Punjab Mail, break off from  to go via Rohtak, Jind, Dhuri. Indian Punjab has this spiders web of train tracks and good roads which makes for fascinating route planning. The pre-partition optional route through Bhatinda-Faridkot and Firozpur Cantt. loses its old connection at the international border via Khem Karan thanks to the Hussainiwala chicken neck of sticking into . The fastest route, rail and road, which we are swishing on, is along the old Grand Trunk Road/Sher Shah Suri Marg axis.
The -Attari/Wagah train is not permitted by bilateral treaty to stop anywhere in Punjab, so after a technical halt at Ambala (Haryana), it is non-stop for the next 300 kms or so along one of the busiest tracks in the country.
Recent past the rail tracks on this route are of the new high-speed "long welded" kind, so there is hardly any of the usual clackety-clack for minutes at a time. -Panipat-Karnal-Kurukshetra-Sha hb ad Markanda-Ambala-Rajpura-Sirhind-Ludhiana-Jullundur-Beas-Amri tsar is under 6 hours by the swanky fully air-con Shatabdi Express, but the more down to earth international train we are on has open windows with higher drag, so we shall take about 7 hours including the extra hour or so for the last bit, Amritsar to Attari.
There was an interesting article recently about how an over one century old bridge on this route was being repaired. With wooden beams used for scantling and keeping the bricks in position after grouting.
2300, 14th April’04:- A typical IR 3-tier sleeper carriage has 76 berths. Each "compartment" has a group of 8 berths, 2 along the side running fore-and-aft and 3 each athwartships, aligned facing each other.
Raghu and I are lucky enough to bag the side seats in our 8-some, and he is fast asleep on the upper berth. Of the other 6 berths, two are occupied by an elderly Ismaili couple, returning after visiting relatives in Mumbai. They have been in the business of bridal wear in  for decades now, but to hear them speak, it would appear as though they have not moved out of Bandra (East). Sweet and contented looking bird-like lady and sharp pointed beard refined gentleman  Marlboro Lights. Across them are four Hindus from a larger contingent bearing eternal allegiance to the Sheikh Sarai/Panchsheel Colony Laughter Club, headed for the 3rd  Test at Pindi like us, two elderly gentlemen and a middle aged couple. The elderly men are being referred to as "Swami" by the others, but that only means that they get their whisky served, and in turn keep offering some to the Ismaili gent, who keeps declining till his wife falls asleep, wherupon he astounds all of us with his speed and capacity.
In the compartnent on one side are 8 young people from a loud and noisy extended Muslim  from  going to  to meet up with  but travelling on visas, the young men are all in extremely tight trousers with body hugging t-shirts and the young ladies are not of the shy retiring type at all either. They are providing the rest of us with antakshri entertainment which goes haywire more every now than then. In the compartment on the other side are Bunty, Shunty, Tinkoo and Pinky, progressively getting rapidly wasted in dark and efficient silence, and some other random people who have been sleeping ever since they boarded.
This is one contented train whistling North. Even the variety of cops who pass through every now and then smile indulgently. I stroll around the vestibuled train, plenty of space available.
0100 15th April’04 "Mushtaq" is a Pakistani journalist with an Urdu newspaper and a worldview, returning after a few weeks in  as part of a sponsored group. We have made polite conversation, but then retreated into our own worlds, for he seems to smoke a lot too. His  migrated from Ludhiana to Multan, and he is sitting quietly on his window seat as I walk across to point out the 24x7 industrial area near Ludhiana, Dhandari Kalan, where I have worked in the past at the Inland Container Depot.
Suddenly, the diesel headed train, with that metal-on-metal sound and oscillating sway signalling a rapid drop in speed so beloved to those of us who grew up with gentler steam but fell in  with the abruptness of newer technologies, slows down outside Ludhiana. Mushtaq’s is visibly emotional as the train grinds to a sudden halt right bang on the main platform, where it says Ludhiana in English, Hindi, Gurumukhi and Urdu, black lettering on yellow board in even more yellow sodium vapour lamps. The policemen on duty seem to be prepared for this, as they have cleared the area of the usual night-vendors and accompanying railway noises. It is stark and ghostly as official type people on the platform watch this train and the few souls awake inside watch them in return. Nobody knows why we have stopped and by now other people are making waking up noises all across the train.
A very smart, tough looking and crisply dressed 3-star Punjab Police Inspector ambles past with his walkie-talkie on high static and low RF control, supplemented by a retinue of followers. I signal him with an amount of respect I am unaware that I can summon, identify myself as an Indian from , and ask him in my best Queen’s English if a Pakistani on board who has ancestors from Ludhiana can just step on the platform for a few seconds. Something happens to this tough cop, and Mushtaqgets his few moments in life of connecting back. His subsequent emotions are too private to be reproduced here. Spring high tide water marks in life are made of these fleeting moments that we can grab through coincidences and other good people. Mushtaq’s grandfather was one of the few male members of his  to get out alive during the bloodbaths, he has heard tales that some of the rest converted and stayed back.
0100-0430 15th April’04 some of the most affluent parts of , the vibrancy and wealth both agricultural and industrial, pass us by in the course of the night on this route. Smells vary a lot here, from clear wet mud to trees to molasses to drains to sugar factories to fields to chemicals to fuel dump vapours to dust to city  to waste. The satsangis at Beas obviously wake up early, we can see lights on when we pelt past this amazingly clean and sylvan area around 0315. Amritsar is also awake and bustling when we cross at about 0345. It is breaking dawn at about 0445 in the morning, and most of the train is fast asleep, when we quite suddenly roll on to Platform 2 of Attari International Station. I was expecting fanfares, but am not prepared for what follows next.
There are these infernal mynahs making an end-of-the-world is nigh kind of racket, they roost in their thousands under the steel roof of the station. That, and the railway guards walking past the train, banging on windows with their night sticks, has all of us out like startled mice, as the IR rake is inspected and readied to move out to the idle line. Where the devil are we? All we can see are rows upon rows of unmanned cabins and customs counters, with not a soul on the station except other passengers.
0430-0830 15th April’04 pakoda and chole-puri vendors appear, so do flies. The toilet on the North end of the platform gets clogged up fairly rapidly and the fetid aroma mixes with the stench of stale  being re-fried. We find another set of toilets at the Southern end of the platform, available for the business and custom of selected users for a small consideration to the railway staff hanging around. Bath and change, motivate the railway stalls to rustle up some very decent omlettes with fresh parathas, and passable tea. Wait for the Customs and  staff to appear. And wait. And fill forms for illiterate travellers. And wait. And fill more forms for more illiterate travellers.
There is more bird shit on this platform than on any other platform in all of Indian Punjab. There are more flies on this platform than on any other platform in Punjab and its territories anywhere, including all of England, the Bay Area and Seattle/British Columbia. There are as many illiterate people travelling between  and , percentagewise, as their were half a century ago.
0830-2230 15th April’04 Work starts, khaki and blue uniforms abound. At the counter, all of us Indians with  visas issued on the 12th of April run into a technical flaw - seems that the operative word with the Pakistani visa is that we were supposed to enter  within 3 days of issue, date of issue included. We are asked to stand aside. The number of people asked to stand aside grows, so do the protests. A while later, consultations with a higher authority somewhere having taken place obviously, we are told that the Indian authorities at Attari have no problems letting us go, but if the Pakistanis don’t let us in, and keep us at Wagah, then we should not blame the Indians as the next train back is only after 4 days, on Monday the 19th. No, we can not return by road or "foot crossing", the bilateral treaty prohibits changing the mode of crossing.
Customs is also fairly painless, here again, partly because of our middle-class educated appearance, partly because all that most of us  visa sorts are carrying is clothes and a few gifts, and mostly because the travellers with goods in commercial quantities that the Customs are really after are easy to spot, thanks to their huge sacks. Those are the people who are held back for negotiations. It is very interesting to observe these "negotiations", it is the only entertainment on offer anyway, carried out loudly in the open and without any trace of coyness by Customs staff as well as travellers. The range of goods, being moved in huge sacks, varies, and includes medical supplies, syringes, anti-mosquito machines, cheap toys, readymade shirts and trousers, proprietory creams, betel leaves, pineapples, film magazines, paints, sanitary fittings, copy-books, and other stuff we can not see.  visitors are allowed to take alcohol through, regular travellers not.
By about 1330, all deals have been closed satisfactorily, latecomers (smarter Indians) who have skipped the -Attari IR train and arrived directly by road have been seamlessly integrated, and all passengers bound for  moved to the North end of a segregated Platform 3. Brilliantly, this is also the side which gets the sun for the rest of the afternoon. An IR inspector moves around amidst the crowd, collecting her pound of flesh for excess baggage at this stage. It is all commerce and transacted with bravado and elan, without receipts in most cases. Two persons from an unknown agency take me aside for a chat thinking that I am a Pakistani, and then treat Raghu and me to coffee when they realise I am not.
Raghu is busy making friends and trying vainly to find a television or radio to catch the 3rd day of the 3rd Test at Pindi, therefore he peels off at this point towards some pretty Pakistani young ladies headed back for Islamabad with their wilting mother. The platform is getting progressively dirtier, and the flies are doubling in number every 30 minutes, calling in back-up forces from far and wide. The Punjabi journalists from Multan are rapidly reviewing their impressions of . I have found salvation in the form of a devotee of Shiv-Shamboo and am getting increasingly mellow. The sun is baking all of us into little pieces of fired clay.
Another Middle Epilogue The Two (or Three?) Nation Theory falls flat as far as trains are concerned. Bring the two Nations together, and see what they do to the trains?
At about 1430, the much awaited and delayed PR rake arrives on the now vacated Platform 2, to loud cheers from all of us waiting  bound passengers on Platform 3, and disgorges what seems to be a vast sea of  in all colours and men in blue, white and saffron turbans, with a few nihangs in their finery for effect. The first of the returning Sikh jatha from Hassan Abdal/Panja Sahib/Pindi has arrived in all its glory and noise and demands, insists, that the same PR rake take them right up to Amritsar. They will not take no for an answer, and while the bilateral treaty does not permit Indian trains to move North of Wagah, and Pakistani trains to move South of Attari, it is obvious that the jatha is not in the mood to let some late Lateef thing as fanciful as a bilateral treaty come in their way.
Kirtan is hurriedly organised over the PA system. A , or worse, is averted. The Will of the Akal prevails. An additional Indian diesel engine is summoned urgently, and the reddish-orange IR loco marked "Katni" (a town in Madhya Pradesh), is coupled on to the green PR rake. Before we  bound passengers can realise it, "our" PR rake has moved off southwards towards Amritsar packed with Sikh pilgrims, under command of a delighted mixed PR/IR crew who are obviously looking forward to Pritam da Hotel or Kesar da Dhaba or Guru da Langar at the Golden Temple, preferably all three.
This repeats itself a total of three times. Each time a PR rake loaded to the brim with Sikh pilgrims arrives from , the pilgrims clear inwards  and customs into , and then vanish with great despatch on the single line towards Amritsar in our PR rake under IR engine power, Tughlagabad-() and Bhagat ki Kothi-(Jodhpur), respectively, and do not return. There must be a big well somewhere in Amritsar where these trains are being parked, obviously. Each time we go back to the omlette and paratha guy who is fast becoming a wealthy and dear old friend. And nobody has the faintest idea about what, if anything, is happening at Rawalpindi with the  Test beyond the odd update.
Shunty and company, who were looking sad all day, have now perked up as the evening closes in, and started round two of what is obviously their main  in life along with an enhancement in the number of troops. My two friends from Multan are busy designing missiles.
At sunset, 24 hours after I have left a comfortable home with running hot water and an adoring dog and a barman who knows what I want, in , an eighth wonder kind of thing happens. All the flies get converted, morphed, into very small and very sharp mosquitoes. The mynahs come back happily, in pairs and  groups, singing joyous farming songs of successful harvests, in formation, with a day’s load of shit saved up. They assemble and take positions on the human flotsam and jetsam, already weary and totally broken regardless of  or nationality on Platform No. 3 of Attari International, pride of IIR.
We are machine gunned from all around and bombarded from on top, I am ready to call it an evening and become a Sikh myself, if only to get back to the Grand Hotel at Amritsar on the next PR rake. At this stage, to add another set of variables to this increasingly Kafkaesque scenario, we are also informed that the Indian BSF and Pakistani Rangers do not operate the gate across the Railway line after sunset, till 0900 the next morning. However, permission is being sought, and we shall be informed, though it is also informed that it is unlikely that another train will come from tonight. Of the PR rakes that went to Amritsar, ofcourse, there is absolutely no news. Even Ahmed Shah Abdali could not have done better.
Next. Like with all things on the sub-Continent, around 2030, without any information. A non-jatha standard PR rake steams in on Platform 2 at Attari, full of standard issue tired passengers as well as happy  fans whose visas have expired. The passengers coming in to  have spent the whole day at Wagah, giving way to the Sikh jatha, and are eminently disgusted. They tell us that the Pakistani authorities waiting for us at the other end are at the end of their fuses. The Indian  and Customs staff at Attari have spent the whole day clearing the Skih jathas, and are equally annoyed. The Northern Railway staff from  who have been waiting to take their IR train back to  are upset because their schedule and path has been shot out of all possible shape. The PR staff are obviously disappointed that the greatly appreciated trend of taking PR train rakes on a one-way ride to Amritsar for a grand bada khaana-egg-peg-leg--angrezi-soda session has been reversed and therefore switch off all the fans and lights. The passengers bound for  are beyond any reasonable emotions and are wandering around, gibbering like the lunatics in the famous Hollywood movie, One S(h)at under the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The mosquitoes and mynahs are full of joy, this must be their biggest feast day ever, and the station resounds to everybody’s babble.
Around 2115 IST, we are all given something like 7 minutes to sprint to the dark carriages of what is obviously a collection of the most condemned wagons from, maybe the PR guys got really worried after reaching a 3-0 score for the day and did not want to take any more chances. The Attari-Wagah train has a few sealed cargo wagons (8-wheelers) hooked on in front with export goods from . It then gives a series of wild hoots which send the mynahs into yet another frenzied rhapsody, the omlette and paratha vallah is busy opening a new bank account, and we finally leave  for the border a couple of kilometers or so away. Along the way we are accompanied by BSF riders on horses that obviously have night vision as they evade barbed wire.
The Train meanders past a level crossing, then through fields. The Train crawls as it crosses the fully lit up fence on the Indian side. The Train then jerks and fumbles through no-man’s land till the engine reaches the marker stone which signifies the middle, where it stops forever while some sort of exchange ceremony takes place. The Train then moves on, over what are obviously badly maintained tracks and weak culverts, and 57 years later, my son and I with my father’s spirit, we are in .
Adjust wrist watches for new time zones.
Middle Epilogue 2200 PST on the 15th of April’04, welcome to Wagah Station,. No shouting, no slogans, no zindabad/murdabad. Just tired humanity. Ahead there is segregation, Pakistanis enter to the right, Indians (and others) to the left.
The PR train from Wagah onwards to  is not going to leave till the last passenger is cleared. I decide to sit down and people-watch, be the last person in. Let me see what will happen if the clock crosses 15th and my entry visa expires? It is now 10pm at night,  time, and it has taken us 18 hours to cross 3 kilometres, and we are not done yet. Shunty offers me a vodka disguised as mineral water, straight shots. I accept.





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