An unusual aspiration for a young student

When I was in the eighth standard, a teacher of mine asked students of my class what they liked to become when they grew up. One boy wanted to become a doctor, another wanted to become a police officer, and yet another wanted to become a soldier. When I stood up and revealed what I was dreaming to become when I grew up — a goods train guard — my teacher was shocked while the other boys booed. After silencing the boys who naturally thought my choice was funny, my teacher wanted to know why I chose to become a goods train guard. “What you will ultimately end up as is a different matter but as a young boy you should aim high,” he said. I hesitantly replied, “Sir, I want to become a goods train guard because I like the goods train guard’s cabin so much.”

My classmate Viswanath stood up and said, “Sir I know why he chose to become a goods train guard. He is slow and goods trains are slow. He holds the last rank in the class and naturally he likes the last wagon that is the guard’s cabin.”

The entire class endorsed his explanation by bursting into laughter.

We lived in a house near a railway line. Trains became a part of our lives. I never failed to look at trains as they pass by hardly a furlong away from our window. Though I liked passenger trains a lot, it was the goods trains that won my heart. A goods train is slow, graceful, and unhurried and humble. What in a goods train that I really fell for is its last cosy cabin for the guard. Since its position is far from the train’s noisy engines, it has a serene air about itself.

Most of the children those days yearned to have an opportunity to travel in the driver’s cabin. But I longed to be allowed to travel in the guard’s cabin. I was dying to know what it would feel like to travel in it when it rains outside, through the countryside, looking at fields, trees, hills rolling in the distance, and undulating lush green meadows dotted with grazing cows. Unlike drivers who have to be ever alert and vigilant, guards can afford to close their eyes a bit and dream. They have their own desk and chair anchored to the floor of the cabin. Above all, the balcony-like open space of the cabin with steel hand railings, standing from which guards wave their green flag to the stationmasters, is wonderful. I longed to sit in the guard cabin and watch the star-spangled night sky with a silver sickle of a moon, through unpolluted clean and clear air, while the goods train was taking a nap at some signal in the countryside.

The sad part of this love story is this: I got a stifling bank cashier cabin when I grew up. Even now I feel a twinge of pain in my heart whenever I see the guard’s cabin of a passing goods train through the window of an express train during my travels. But the faces of these good’s train guards were not as happy as would have been mine had I been in their shoes.

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