A few years ago an American mother unwittingly caused a public outcry for allowing her nine-year-old son to take the New York subway all by himself. Later, in her book Free Range Kids , she advocated that in their own interest, children should not be overprotected.
In the 1960s India, everything (eggs, milk, meat, and kids) was “free range”, although nobody had heard of this phrase then.
One Christmas season when I was nine, I pestered dad to send me to my cousins in Madras (later Chennai) for the holidays. He agreed, provided an adult could be found to accompany me. The hunt for such a person began and somebody was soon found.
He was a guest at our neighbour’s home and had come from Madras on work. He would be returning to Madras shortly and agreed to accompany me. We never knew his actual name because everybody, including his wife as it later turned out, called him by his initials EDR, pronounced “idiyar.”
He kindly sent his peon to reserve his ticket (and mine) on the night train to Madras, where my uncle, Govind, would pick me up on arrival. The plan was that idiyar would take my suitcase along with his bags to his office, and after work he would come directly to the railway station where I was to meet him.
On the night of the journey dad took me and my bedding roll to the Bangalore City station on his Lambretta scooter.
Train stations are exciting places and travelling without my parents for the first time made it more so. Although it was time for the train to depart, there was no sign of idiyar. Dad located my compartment which, to his surprise, was a “ladies only” compartment. I got in while dad went looking for idiyar.
Walking the length of the platform, dad found him settled in a compartment at the far end of the train with his luggage (and mine) stashed under his bunk. But before dad could catch his attention the train began to move and gathered speed. I caught a glimpse of dad’s puzzled face as the train sped past.
My travel companions were a harassed mother, her three small children and their nanny. The youngest was an infant, who cried incessantly and kept all of us awake all night.
Early in the morning I must have dropped off to sleep in sheer exhaustion but, as I recall, that was one of the best sleep sessions I’ve ever had. I woke up to pitch darkness and a hammering on the closed wooden window shutters. The train had arrived at the cavernous Madras Central station and the compartment was empty except for me.
Even as I sat up bleary eyed, wondering where I was, the door opened and Uncle Govind stood there, relieved to have found me. He confessed that he almost had a heart attack when the train arrived an d I could not be found. He had walked up and down the platform in panic, searching until he found my name in the list of passengers pasted on the door of my compartment.
By then everybody had left and the platform was deserted. But where in the world was idiyar? He had probably gone home quickly, along with my suitcase.
I clumsily rolled up my bedding as quickly as I could and we hurried out of the station to the car park.
Until we could locate idiyar’s home and retrieve my suitcase I had to wear my cousin’s clothes. Only a new toothbrush had to be purchased.
Whether my dad and Uncle Govind sought and got an explanation from idiyar later, I was blissfully ignorant of. I was enjoying the holidays with my cousins and that’s all I cared.
“What if the train had been shunted off to the yard with you in it, before Govind could find you?” asked dad, frowning darkly as though it was somehow my fault.
Despite the fiasco, we continued to be friends with idiyar long afterwards and there were no hard feelings on either side.
leelakrishnamohan@hotmail.com
