About Me

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Gurgaon, Haryana, India
I look at life with detachment and distance, like a window shopper. Not only I study the window but also my own reflections in it.

Railway Genes

Saturday, July 25, 2009 Labels: , , 1 comments


A Hereditary Trap
Indian society had and still has insidious stratification based on caste groups. Originally these caste groups started out as work-guilds. A group of carpenters - for example interacted and lived together for professional reasons. Opportunities and mobility being restricted, generations after generations took up jobs of their ancestors. Thus the work-guilds crystallized into water-tight caste groups. A child was condemned (or blessed - in the case of upper castes) to follow family calling. Even modern day professions had their own entrapment for children. I, even in 20th century was destined to become a Railwayman - almost as a karma of birth in a Railway Family....

My grand-father in early 20th century was a clerk in a station in Metre Gauge section of what is now called North-eastern Railway. It’s not known whether my great grand father was also in Railway - it would be a fair guess that he too must have been a Railwayman. Jobs in Railways at that time used to be gifted to children of loyal Railwaymen. It was difficult for outsider to enter the profession - unless the person was highly qualified. Thus our family tree is entwined with Railways for over a century, not much later than the inception of Railway in India in mid 19th century. Nobody from the family worked outside Railway (except my father). Nobody married outside a Railway Family (except me). Thus all my relatives - uncles and cousins were Guards, Drivers, Station Masters or Union Leaders. My father escaped the entrapment into Railway, due to untimely death of my grand-father in mid 1920s.He was sent to work in Haridwar Station as a replacement to the locals, who had succumbed to Cholera epidemic. My grand-father also fell to cholera within a month. Although this meant pauperization of the family, my father ultimately did much better than he would have done in Railway. He escaped the Karma of Railway-birth (not berth).
I remember most of my holidays in childhood were spent with Railway Relatives. We played in Railway Yards. We sneaked into forbidden areas like Station Master's room or Signalling Huts. We also played in equipment storage areas - where we played about with signal levers and trolleys etc. Many times we were chased away by the chowkidars. Informally we learnt a lot about Railway operations during playing. In the evening my uncles used to clarify any doubts we had, during our informal coaching in Railway. The discussions over dinner were mostly about Railways. This knowledge and experience fleshed out the bland training I received later during induction into Railway. The Railway entered my Genes by osmosis.
Although I passed out among top quartile of class from IIT-Delhi and most of my class-mates managed to get a career in USA, yet I got trapped to join Railway, due to family persuasions. Firstly, I was persuaded to just enter the competitive Exams For Railway (After all even if you get selected, you can always back-off). Later having succeeded - a whole congregation of relatives emotionally blackmailed me to join. Railway-birth leads to a berth in Railway.
I spent over 37 years in Railways and rose to become CEO of a Zonal Railway.
But it was galling that I could not rise further, because people with no roots in Railway, questioned the depth of my groundings in Railway Operations. Ultimately I resigned.
None of my children joined Railway despite my prodding and escaped the hereditary profession. They were able to break the Railway voodoo. I wish I could have too!!

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Holding Back Tears

Saturday, July 18, 2009 Labels: , 1 comments

A Journey to after Worlds
As I wrote in an earlier post, I took voluntary retirement from my Job as a CEO (General Manager) of a Railway Zone of Indian Railways. I had anticipated the emotional turmoil and the insecurities of a work-less future, but the events were much more heart wrenching than I had anticipated. I could barely manage to not to cry openly in Public. In retrospect I feel I should have let the tears flow..
Let me start with the defining moment of my last day in office.
The build-up upto that day had left me physically and emotionally tired. A month of leave-taking farewell parties had already taken its toll on my digestive system. A big deficit of sleep had accumulated over a few weeks. It has been a tenet of self-discipline with me, that I should always retain enough physical and mental reserves, needed for any unexpected emergencies like - accidents and other mishaps that are the professional hazards of the job.
But that day (3rd July 2009) I was not in such a condition. I could not sleep despite a pill. (A Hindi film dialogue says: "Sleep, my dear, is not a daily affair"). Before leaving for office, my wife and I stood in the temple at home and prayed to God and our Parents. I told her that, what we are leaving behind was never ours. We were tenants here and it’s the attachment that had developed - which is causing us the pain. Let’s move-on and not look back over the shoulders.
Office was as hectic as any normal day. There was backlog of paperwork that I could not leave for my successor. Then suddenly people started trooping into my office room at 5pm. It was the last farewell. There were even 5 divisional heads and their teams on video-conference. Suddenly, all too soon, the formalities were over and I was ushered out of my room. Used to giving orders in that room, that day I complied to the dictates like a child. From the beginning of the scene I had become emotionally numb.
I had imagined that when I leave office, I will try to look back from the door at the scene of last two and half years of cheers and tears. I will try to burn an image good enough for rest of life. But it was not to be. Like a person in trance, I was moved out by a tidal wave of crowd that had gathered. Events had gathered a momentum of their own. A part of me rebelled and wrestled with the flow of events. It did not want to go. I realized my full persona was not united in my decision to leave my Job prematurely – it was more an intellectual decision.
The scene in the lobby below was much more sombre. People were lined in large crowds to bid farewell in traditional way - with garlands and handshakes. There was also a band playing cacophonic film songs. Soon I was lead into my usual seat in the car. But it was very unusual. By now tears were welling up in my eyes. I controlled them with all my strength. There were people all over office complex. On all balconies and even on the roof. I had truly loved all Railwaymen who worked with me and had developed deep emotional bonds, but I had not known its reciprocation. Soon the car gathered speed and I realized that it’s all over. I will never get a chance to look back. I should have allowed my emotions the cathartic luxury of sobbing at the end of one world and entry into after-world.
It was not unlike real death and soul's journey beyond. I could experience, how my soul will get tortured on my death by the attachments. Even there, part of me will never like to go. But there I will be able to sob without anybody noticing or hearing.

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