In my earlier post on Banking in
the Rail I had promised to let you know how our small group of commuters in the
Rail helped restoring a girl to her parents. Actually a lot of credit goes to
Alka Rajendran. Let me explain briefly about our group. It is for people who
have missed reading my earlier posts. I as a banker, was undergoing a rural
assignment at a village branch of State Bank of India at Dabhoda. Dabhoda comes
on a meter gauge rail route at a distance of about 30 km from Ahmedabad. We had
formed a small group to conveniently pass those times together in the train
which being a meter gauge train travelled the distance as per the convenience
no matter how the clock ticked.
Alkaben, as we, the group members fondly called her was a very jovial lady. Let me tell you that this group of people were travelling since a number of years likewise. Only that time I was a new addition. But with each new addition to a group, the entire group dynamics undergoes a change. Alkaben, no matter how she conducted before my coming, was very cordial to me. She would sit facing me in the train to talk. But in such groups the talks often are so superficial that we tend to learn about everything under the sun from the person, but we fail to learn about each other. Many days passed. She would come with lots of items for breakfast and the moment we sat in the train she would open the tiffin boxes. The aroma of South Indian dishes were so mesmerising that I never ever thought that Alka Rajendran was not a South Indian. The day I came to know about her, I was embarrassed to even look at her.
She was Gujarati and her husband
Mr. Rajendran, a Tamil. Mr. Rajendran was running a canteen business somewhere
in the City. Hence all the delicacies of South Indian dishes. That day I also
learned that Alkaben worked in a Vikshyuk Gruh, Beggers’ Home. In detail she
told me that the begger ladies spotted roaming helplessly in the state were
taken into police custody and were handed over to the Beggers’ Home for looking
after. Some of them were restored to their parents and where it is not possible
to deport they were rehabilitated locally. In the Beggers’ Home these ladies
made various things like paper bags, paper plates, dresses, pillows, quilts,
some eatables etc, Some of these items were sold locally and the money was
utilised in the Home.
That day I admired Alkaben for
doing such a wonderful job. I told that that was a great social work she was
doing. “That is why you remain so cheerful” I added. She immediately returned
it. Admiring me she said “aap bhi kuchh
kam nahin kar rahehe” (You are also doing no less). I wanted to know what she knew about my activities. She immediately told me that in the village
everyone was talking that no bank manager gave loan to Kanubhai Patel till my coming to Dabhoda just because he had a big
family and all of them together owned their land. She smiled looking at me and said “that family
wanted to stay together. Kanubhai is the elder brother and he is a good fellow.
People are talking you are a different type of person”.
I remembered one day Kanubhai was being asked by my staff to leave after
declining the loan. Kanubhai came to me and cried. He said “Sir I am the eldest
of our 9 brothers. We all stay together. You know what it takes to keep a
family together. I have land and other property of my late father. I want a
tractor and want a crop loan for potato farming”. Kanubhai was a robust and mascular
man, dark complexion, slightly bald. He was sweating while talking to me and was looking straight into my eyes with his red eyes full of tears. I asked him to wait in the
corridor and enquired from my staff about him. My officer told me that the loan
document did not have enough space to take so many signatures. I will be
digressing if I go into further details. Kanubhai bought a tractor with a bank loan and invited
all of us to his potato cultivation. Nice person.
Alkaaben, was very clever. She
said “when you knew me as Alka Rajendran you asked me “Saukhyam ma?” (are you
fine?) and continued in some broken tamil. Now that you know me as Gujarati you
are talking in Gujarati. At other times you do general conversation in Hindi.
Since you are not from Gujarat, you must also be knowing some other languages”.
I told her “I am from Odisha. during
school days I had lot of telugu classmates, in college there were many Bengali
classmaes and when I studied in Delhi University I had to deal with a lot of
Punjabis. That is why I am familiar with these languages with different degrees
of fluency”.That was the small group talk.
That day Alkaben invited me to
the Beggers’ Home. There she told me that there were a lot of girls and middle
aged ladies in the Beggers’ Home with whom they were not able to communicate because of language problems.
If I could find out what these ladies wished to convey by talking to them there
could be some help. I sat there interviewing the girls one by one. One lady
spoke in typical Maithili style. Others spoke in such languages with rural accents and I could not make head or tail of what they were all talking. I was beginning to feel defeated when at
last emerged a young girl. She was talking my own mother tongue not very
refined type but one could make out what she wished to convey. I was saved of the embarrassment of being treated as a dumb fellow.
From her I understood that she
was from a village near Jajpur, Odisha. She was Lali, the daughter of a farm labourer, Ram Behera.
Her farm was very near a railway line. One day she had a terrible fight with
her parents. While the fight was going on, a train had come and had stopped.
She had just swallowed all the abuses she was hurled at and was trembling with
anger. Suddenly the train started. She ran straight to the train and climbed up
the steps into the compartment. She did not know where she was going. She was
spotted at Maninagar Station at Ahmedabad by the police and was brought to the
Beggers’ Home.
I told Alkaben that I shall try
to find out more details. Same day I searched the bank’s directory and called
Bhubaneswar Local Head Office of State Bank of India. From them I took the
phone number of Jajpur Branch Manager. Jajpur Branch Manager gave me details of
another branch which is very near that village. I spoke to the Branch Manager
of that village Branch of State Bank of India.
Number of years have passed since
then. I do not recollect the name of the Branch Manager. But I remember what he
said. “Sir, even being a Branch Manager how do you manage to do all these things
and of thinking of restoring a poor girl from our area to her family. I wil
just now go to that village and call you.” He did call in the night to tell me
that Lali was daughter of Ram Behera who had been declared as missing since three years. Everyone
there knew that she got into a train and went to some far off place. No one had
any clue of her. He also told me that
her father was a very poor man. He wants her daughter back but can’t afford to
come to Ahmedabad to collect her.
Alkaben managed all that. Through
the Branch Manager Lali talked to her parents. Lali was escorted by one lady
Police and one Gents Police Personnel. Beggers’ Home was grateful to Alkaben,
Alkaben to me and Myself to Railways.
Like this millions of small groups
of the train exist today. Millions of
plans must be taking place and millions must be getting benefitted.
Thank you Railways.
After Mumbai, Delhi too will not be far
away in the future. The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL),
which is implementing the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project, has invited
tenders to collect data for bullet trains connecting Ahmedabad to the country's
national capital Delhi. The NHSRCL officials said that while Ahmedabad-Mumbai
bullet train corridor is 508 km long, the Ahmedabad-Delhi high speed rail (HSR)
corridor is longer at 886 km.
Railways works on upgrading Sleeper and
General Class coaches to AC. Sources said the Rail Coach Factory in
Kapurthala has been entrusted with the job of making the prototype of the
upgraded Sleeper Class coach, which will have 83 berths instead of the current
“#railfail Thank you Railways.Trains are now running between Odisha and Gujarat for ferrying migrant workers from Odisha.
https://twitter.com/nigamananda9/status/1303873940012503041?s=08
 |
“#railfail @PiyushGoyal @RailMinIndia
@RailwaySeva Excellent step in the right direction. Why criminalize when a fine
will do the job?”
https://twitter.com/nigamananda9/status/1302883519740301312?s=08
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