I stood on a railway station platform, frantically looking out for a porter. All my luggage was piled up around me like the ruins of Pompeii. If only a porter had appeared before me, I would have fallen on his neck and kissed him.
But no way, not even a solitary porter made it to the scene. The long and short of it was that, festooned with bag and baggage, and looking like a Christmas tree, I pulled, pushed and dragged my luggage up to the exit, struggling and cursing under my breath all the while.
Travellers today seem to believe in the dictum, self-help is the best help. Many of them have wheeled contraptions that they can pull along or push forth smoothly. Or, maybe with the cost of living going up, porters started demanding too high, and people didn’t want to pay through the noses.
As you carry aero-dynamically designed and slim suitcases much of the time, who wants a porter anyway? This must explain their dwindling numbers today.
I remember a time when hordes of railway porters in their red shirts, towels draped on their shoulders, jauntily carried headloads of luggage — mostly garishly painted tin boxes, bedding wrapped in mats, a jackfruit in the nude and perhaps an ash gourd too from the home garden. There was a bunch called the hold-all, that comprised a quilt, blanket, pillow and what not, all strapped up with leather belts.
No one thought it below their dignity to spread out a mat on the floor of the railway compartment and get a good night’s sleep. Many of us hardly ever reserved seats or berths, we just caught a train. It didn’t matter if we didn’t land a seat immediately. If not, our 10 boxes served as seats, and everyone talked to everyone else. As the train puffed away, smoke and coal dust got into our eyes.
Today many of the faces are hidden behind outstretched newspapers, or the eyes are glued to cellphone screens.
I too had a tin box — ye gods! — painted blue and green. Like Mary’s little lamb it followed me on all my journeys. Today I would be mortified to be seen with such a thing.
Somewhere along the way, I must have got rid of it in a junk shop, or is it lying somewhere in the attic, battered and bruised?
While on the subject of porters, let me not forget our Moosa. I remember him as a man already on the wrong side of 50. He was something of a family attachment. He knew who was coming or who was going by which train, and when. He would come to the house ready to carry the luggage. He was given a meal, depending on the time of the day. He would come to the station. Those days, porters walked with the luggage to and fro. Taxi? Hardly ever. The prerogative to carry our family’s luggage was his alone. He seemed to have staked a claim and so it was till the last. I wonder if he is waiting on the other shore to carry our bags and baggage?
But then, in the final journey with no return ticket, nobody carries any luggage — but the burden of their sins?
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