Wodehouse on the Suburban

In the sedate 1960s when Metrorail and Monorail were pipe dreams, I used to travel to my work place in Egmore by electric train from Guindy. They were quick, convenient and almost punctual. More importantly, they sped with uniform acceleration and almost jolt-free, so I could read the unputdownable Penguin paperbacks without any ocular strain and consequential damage. Before long, I switched to the first class coaches. They offered seats with green-coloured cushions unlike the spartan second class (or ‘cattle class’ to borrow Sashi Tharoor’s slanderous usage) with wooden seats, that failed to give fundamental (pun accidental) comfort to the riders.

The season tickets the Railways offered were quite cheap and, so, immensely popular. You could buy a monthly or quarterly ‘season’ with no caps on the number of trips up and down. Only condition was the passenger should carry it and make it available for checking by the flying squad. Most of the first class passengers were commuters of the officer cadre, who rode free – a treasured and sacrosanct perk, as the quarterly first class season tickets were quite costly. The first time, when I paid for it through my nose, the clerk at the Guindy booking counter rose from his seat and gave me the season ticket, ostensibly with due respect to the person who splurged so much for comfort in a short travel.

When I entered the holy of holies on day number one, an uppity occupant, shot up from his seat and pointed out in a gruff voice, ‘Mister, this is first class.’ Perhaps he mistook me for a college student who went for such kicks. As the train was stopping due to signal clearance, I felt he would throw me out the way barrister Gandhi was in South Africa, travelling from Durban to Pretoria. My icy ‘So what?’ rejoinder cut him off. He shot a look at my shiny Penguin, Wodehouse paperback, into which I had kept a finger as page mark. His face displayed a maelstrom of emotions. However, he softened and apologetically nodded. Perhaps he felt rightly a Wodehouse fan would always have class (a first class, in this case) and would be bona fide! Little did he know that some of Plum’s lordships dived under the seats when they smelt a ticket examiner!

Most of the passengers, were in the habit of taking a three-course-brunch of hot, spicy, homely Madras Meals with a soporific thamboolam chaser, would comfortably nestle into the pillowy arms of Morpheus with muffled or sonorous postprandial snores that would replicate the growl of a Royal Bengal tiger in Sundarbans, on its pre-lunch prowl. However, their meticulously programmed system would alert them pronto, before their detraining station approached.

One unsavoury habit of some of the ticket checking staff, who had a green coloured cuff above the elbow, was to insist on a passenger producing a season ticket for verification. Deplorably, such a checking was waived if the passenger was railway staff. The officer in deep sleep would mumble the sacred word ‘pass’ and the TTE would perforce pass to the next. But such courtesy was not extended to a passenger like me who had paid good money for a first class commutation. One grumpy expression would meticulously scrutinise it like Sherlock Holmes examining a screed with a magnifying glass. This was demeaning.

An interesting sidelight highlighting the ingenuity of a trickster bent upon aiding and abetting free riders came eventually to the knowledge of Railways. The modus operandi was his ‘insurance’ that allowed him to travel for free. All that you had to do was to meet the ‘insurer’ and pay a monthly premium of Rs.2 or so. Understandably, no receipt was issued. As an endowment, the ‘insured’ could travel any number of times between Tambaram and Beach stations, without purchasing a ticket, but should keep an amount of Rs.10 handy as ‘contingency fund’. In the unlikely event of getting caught, he was told to pay the maximum on-the-spot fine of Rs.10. (otherwise, face an imprisonment for a day). The ‘insurer’ would make good the amount on the production of the railway receipt and the process would be repeated. Eventually, this fraud was found out. An officer who narrated this story, added with pride. ‘Railways that take you on a pleasant ride, should not be taken for such a fraudulent ride! Right?’

J.S. Raghavan
writerjsr@gmail.com

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