GENETIC RAILS

I love trains ...tracks ...train journeys ..and the stations..Its in my DNA to love trains I think. My grandfather and my uncle were in Railways, the former a station master and the latter an engine driver. And of course I worked in Railways for 14 years before I decided to take early retirement & pursue other things (staying at home reading, watching TV!)

I hardly remember having any conversation with my grandfather who had a gruff demeanor and never entertained any conversation with his grandchildren. We were all happy to let him be and always would surround our beautiful pleasant grandmother, a happy soul filled with love especially towards us grandchildren. She would tell our mothers to let us all gorge on fruits, tasty juicy mangoes and jackfruits from our own garden and homemade sweets, rather than the rice and dhal which we eat in cities. She knew what each of us liked, the rava ladoos, jelabis, diamond cuts, mixture and other kerala delicacies and kept it ready before we came to the tharavad (ancestral home) during the summer break. She would sit in the long corridor and cut plates after plates of mangoes and we would all clamber over to eat to our hearts fill. The juice running through our hands and soiling our dresses, the good humoured fight for the mango seed, my grandma would leave a good amount of flesh on the seeds for us.

My grandfather would never be an active participant of our summer holidays and will always sit on his special chair and read his newspaper. He would always be dressed in white dhoti and a white full sleeved shirt. The white would have a blue hue of the "Ujala blue". The sleeves would be neatly folded till above the elbow. He was always neat and clean shaven. I have never seen him dressed in anything other than the dhoti and full shirt. His teeth were all in mint condition, gleaming and unbroken till the very end. He wore thick glasses and his eyes bulged from the magnifying lenses and the most prominent feature of his face was the huge nose with black warts on the sides.As years passed, my dad resembled his father a lot with the big nose and et all. My grandfather gave out an air of authority and strictness .We were never allowed to the dining hall when he had his food. We would hide behind the window and peep to see what was so special about his food. I remember vividly the way he squashes the rice and dal and makes huge balls of them and throw it into his mouth. I have wondered at this in the same way I watch Rajnikanth catching his cigarette in mid air - how they land safe into the mouth! Unfailingly everyday my granddad would keep the first ball of rice in a plate and my grandma would serve that and extra food to the dog outside the hall. The dog rightly knows my granddad's meal timings. We would wait for him to vacate the chair in the veranda and would surreptitiously climb onto his chair and invariably one young cousin who stays at the tharavad and thinks she owns the house would run to grandpa and rat on us. We would all ostracise her for a while till grandma chides the eldest of us to include her in our games.Grandpa would come to the room every day where we cousins slept and switch off the fan by 6am. We would all groan and wake up sweaty. My grandma would come, switch on the fans and in her unique voice and style scold grandpa. He would then walk around the tharavad looking at the coconut trees and putting snuff in his huge nose and sneezing. Whoa what a thunderous sound it was! He would wait for his man friday a servant named " Chaami" (his father before him and his son after him lived at the backyard doing odd jobs at the tharavad) to get his days newspaper and cigarettes from the junction (chungam).  Grandpa would take breaks from his newspaper and take a long stout stalk and poke the kitchen gutter and clear it. And other times untie the cow from the cowshed and walk them through the trees in the backyard for a while and tie them up again. We noticed he smoked 3 cigarettes a day one each after every meal. He would let out a loud sounds now and then when our decibel levels increased as we played in the open courtyard.He was a non interfering person and we never feared him. He was a presence in the tharavad and our summer holidays. In the evening he would change into a fresh dhoti and shirt and armed with a torchlight would walk through the paddy fields to the junction. There was a huge peepal tree and a platform built around it. He would meet his friends, sit on the platform  and after an hour get back home shining the torchlight. Maybe he talked with his friends at least, however this was an everyday affair.  After dinner while the children and aunts and uncles would sit around our grandma in the lengthy corridor (veranda) and talk and laugh, my grandpa would diligently lock the many doors of the tharavad and grunt at us and go to sleep.  
The only time my grandfather had a smile and a few words with me were when I was forced by my mother to tell him about my railway job and get his blessings. I reluctantly went near him and stood silently. He saw me from the corner of his eyes but remained engrossed in his Malayala Manorama . How many hours will he read this newspaper, maybe he hides behind them to avoid talking to any of us. After a while I was uneasy and shifted my leg and tried to bring out a cough to let him know my presence. He let out a strange snort from his nostrils and peered at me through his thick glasses... and in his booming voice ...
"What?" 
"Nothing" He went back to his reading. 
"Grandpa I have something to say to you" 
He lowered his newspaper clearly showing his displeasure and stared at my tiny figure.
"Won't you say what is it" 
"I got a job in the Railways"
"What?" 
"I got a job in the Railways and I am posted to Shimoga town in Karnataka"
I could see a smile forming in his thick lips 
"Are you old enough to get a job?"
"Yes, I am 20"
He gestured me to come closer so he could take a good look at me. His smile broadened and he asked me to elaborate about my job and I could see in his eyes fill up with pride and happiness. 
"Did you know I worked in Railways as a Stationmaster?"
"Yes grandpa, dad told me"
"Good, do your job well" 
That was all and he hid his face behind the newspaper.I waited for a few minutes expecting more conversation from him, now that we were related by the same paymaster. He didn't bother to acknowledge my presence anymore. Our parallel track existence paused for a brief encounter.

I walked away from him, head held high, feeling all important as my cousins ran to me asking about my "conversation" with grandpa. I told them it's between 2 railway employees and nothing to share with the commoners!