We got off the train at Nizzamuddin – one of the major railway stations in Delhi. Mathew Perry or Matt as he liked to be called had given the directions over a phone conversation, a day earlier, on where to go. We as in I, my wife and our six year old princess are on our once in a two year vacation to India. Having lived in the US for the last few years this had become our norm and routine.
One of my former colleague and friend from work had visited India around 6 months back and has been here ever since. We have been in touch on Facebook and he expressed his desire to meet once we were here.
“Get off at Nizzamuddin and exit the station from the west gate. After you have walked for about half a mile, ask any shopkeeper for the ‘Dabbewala Gora’, you will be directed to where I live.” Matt had told us.
We did the same and surprisingly he was right, people indeed started giving us directions.
“Not sure what is he doing in this slum; he could have easily stayed in one of the good hotels”, I thought.
Well, we continued to head wherever people pointed us to. If you want to see the reality of development and the growth story in India, you should visit the slums surrounding our airports and railway stations. We Indians believe in the balance of nature. The swanky airports with their squeaky clean toilets are always surrounded by slums with people defecating in the open. Railway stations are a different matter though. They say half of India depends on railways for their commute. I can bet a considerable share lives on railways property – in these illegal slums.
I was walking lost in my thoughts when I stopped to ask for directions once more. The paanwala pointed me towards the other end of the slum where the railway yard was. It was difficult to say where the slum ended and the railway yard started so I checked with someone again. This is the key to finding directions in India. Everyone will help you with them but you need to confirm and reconfirm to make sure you are headed the right way. This guy was courteous enough to walk with me and then finally he banged on one of the abandoned railway coaches.
Out came Matt with a smile and greeted the man who helped us with a ‘Shukriya’. The man waived his hand in acknowledgement and left.
I am sure; it was not difficult to read the bewilderment on my face as Matt invited me in. “An abandoned coach of all the places in the world.” I thought in my head but didn’t say anything.
The inside of the coach was in-fact a surprise. All the seats and contraptions had been removed and the coach was kind of remodeled to have a neatly laid bed, a small office bed and a window AC. “Can you do this? And how the hell are you powering everything and the AC? That entire thing aside, what in the world are you doing here?” I mouthed as many questions as I could in one breath.
Matt lifted the shutter of one of the window and pointed to a diesel genset outside.
“Hmm..clever. How long have you been living here?” I asked.
“About a month”, he replied with a smile.
“And how long are you planning to continue?” I asked gazing in amazement the interior of the coach once more.
“Till someone from the railways finds out; I greased the palms of the yard watchman with a few hundred bucks and a few packs of Marlboro. He hasn’t bothered me since. In fact he has helped me setup this place” he smiled.
“But why?”, I asked.
“Follow me”, he waived his hand and started walking towards the back of the coach. “Look”, he pointed to an embossed strip label reading:
Property of the Indian Railways
Assembled at: Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, Punjab.
Chief Engineer/Designer: Andrew Perry
Chief Engineer/Designer: Andrew Perry
He put his finger on the name, “My father.”
“My father came to India on invitation to work at the rail coach factory when my mother was still pregnant with me. He never returned. They say he died of malaria”, he said. “My mother always told me that he was a good man and loved her and was excited about me coming to the world but he didn’t want to let go off a dream opportunity to design a coach for one of the most complex and busiest railway systems in the world. So, he left promising to return at the end of the six month assignment.”
He continued, “I never met him but wanted to know more about him so decided to come to India in the hope of tracing something related to him. I had no luck for the first 4-5 months but in the end after numerous visits to people who had worked with him, I found this. I just wanted to see this and leave but something made me stay. Maybe the thought of staying with my father’s creation would fill a void that he never could.”
There was nothing else to ask, nothing mattered. Silence was the best conversation I could make.
“My father came to India on invitation to work at the rail coach factory when my mother was still pregnant with me. He never returned. They say he died of malaria”, he said. “My mother always told me that he was a good man and loved her and was excited about me coming to the world but he didn’t want to let go off a dream opportunity to design a coach for one of the most complex and busiest railway systems in the world. So, he left promising to return at the end of the six month assignment.”
He continued, “I never met him but wanted to know more about him so decided to come to India in the hope of tracing something related to him. I had no luck for the first 4-5 months but in the end after numerous visits to people who had worked with him, I found this. I just wanted to see this and leave but something made me stay. Maybe the thought of staying with my father’s creation would fill a void that he never could.”
There was nothing else to ask, nothing mattered. Silence was the best conversation I could make.
