Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXI No. 5, June 16-31, 2021
Pavithra’s Perspective
The Rattle and the Blare
I’ve never seen a tram in my life.
Not directly, that is. I’ve seen them rattling along lines in movies and glimpsed static pictures in magazines. I’ve also read plenty of references in novels by the inimitable SVV, who describes tram-travel in Mylapore with all the fondness and mild annoyance of one who takes them for granted. Other veteran writers like Ashokamithran and Sivasankari too, have written plenty – and then there was the movie Madraspattinam which brought trams to life, at least on the silver-screen. All these made me long for a taste of the past but the best I could do was produce these windy carriages on a miniature scale from an ancient photograph. Which made me appreciate trams even more, those quaint, seemingly frail yet oddly sturdy mechanical horses.
Trams may have been bidden a bitter farewell in 1953, but at least they live on in literature, celluloid and best of all, the leaves of memory.
Description: 3.5” by 5” approximately
Medium: Black and White Micron Pens; 0.20mm and 0.35mm.
