Back then, there were no self-help books to teach you “speed-reading”. But you could learn it by reading the names of stations as the train sped by!
With elbows anchored on the train’s window sill, forehead pressed to the window bar, you had just a few seconds to read the station’s name. And if you had an elder sister on the adjoining window seat, it made for healthy and at times, ugly competition!
The erstwhile Bombay-to-Madras rail route was filled with station names that were a mouthful! You grandly announced Yerraguntla, Tadipatri, Guntakal and Hadapsar as the trains whizzed past them. Till the mid-1980s, the station boards had stayed unchanged for well over a century. You could faintly pick anglicised names such as Poona and Dhond over which the fresh coat of paint had the revised spellings Pune and Daund.
It was as if a mysterious world existed behind these stations that you would never know. As you travelled through the Western Ghats, you wondered how Monkey Hill got its name! When it came to Hotgi and Chiksugar, it was as though they concealed a culinary past!
Of particular interest was Gooty. You felt goofy to imagine that Gooty’s brother was perhaps Ooty! There were station boards that announced, “Alight here to visit the ancient shrine of...” You wondered if it had compelled a passenger to make a life-changing decision to disembark and explore these exotic places.
No station did you look forward to more than Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta in Andhra Pradesh. How could a station have such a big name? Imagination ran riot: how the signboard artist had written half the name and fretted when he found no room to fit the rest! And how a tourist from outside India would stumble over the name, getting to “ven-kata” and thereafter, throwing his hands up in despair!
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