Shaahayda Rizvi
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Hello Marianne and all,
“This reminds me about how the symbols in language can sometimes fit the myth in our lives and vice-versa. So often we feel in symbols as much as we think in symbols.” (Marianne )
Such a warm topic, that I am still thinking about it, and deliberated a bit on what you wrote regarding ‘symbols in language can sometimes fit the myth in our lives…’
IKEA is known to name all its products, there is a Billy Bookcase, Poang armchair, Solleron outdoor sofa. Each product is named after Swedish towns and villages, humans, and other meaningful Swedish words. Take for example the Solleron sofa, named after a Swedish island.
And Marianne, your statement that language can sometimes fit the myth in our lives reminded me of IKEA’s founder. ” The naming system was created by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s founder. Kamprad struggled with dyslexia, and he had trouble remembering the order of the numbers in item codes. So he swapped the numbers for names. This made it easier for him to remember each item, and as a result he made fewer mistakes when filling out forms.”
And then each category of product is assigned a specific type of name, all outdoor furniture is named after islands that have a lot of sun, like Mastholmen are their coffee tables, and also name of an island.
Äpplarö are wooden patio furniture
Solleron are outdoor sofas
Mastholmen are outdoor coffee tablesThen the categories are subdivided, “Bathroom items: Names of Swedish lakes and bodies of water
Linens: Flowers and plants Bedroom and Living Room Furniture: Norwegian places
Bookcases: Professions and Scandinavian boy’s names.” Many of us have assembled their most basic bookcase, the Billy book case. I know I have, and surely have not forgotten the name.So, following this trend, a furniture store in Canada, began naming its products too. Unfortunately, they gave their rubbish bins a few Arabic names : Wahid and Waseem. Fortunately, or unfortunately, “Wahid or vaheed is an Arabic masculine given name, meaning “One”, “Absolute One”. Al-Wahid is one of the 99 names of Allah.” This offended the Arab community, and now the matter is being scrutinized by the ethics committee.
Shaahayda and not Shaheda (Respelled after discussions with Marianne to reflect my myth)
Hello Marianne and all,
Marianne wrote,
“This reminds me about how the symbols in language can sometimes fit the myth in our lives and vice-versa. So often we feel in symbols as much as we think in symbols.”
Such a warm topic, that I am still thinking about it, and deliberated a bit on what you wrote regarding ‘symbols in language can sometimes fit the myth in our lives…’
IKEA is known to name all its products, there is a Billy Bookcase, Poang armchair, Solleron outdoor sofa. Each product is named after Swedish towns and villages, humans, and other meaningful Swedish words. Take for example the Solleron sofa, named after a Swedish island.
And Marianne, your statement that language can sometimes fit the myth in our lives reminded me of IKEA’s founder. ” The naming system was created by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s founder. Kamprad struggled with dyslexia, and he had trouble remembering the order of the numbers in item codes. So he swapped the numbers for names. This made it easier for him to remember each item, and as a result he made fewer mistakes when filling out forms.”
And then each category of product is assigned a specific type of name, all outdoor furniture is named after islands that have a lot of sun, like Mastholmen are their coffee tables, and also name of an island.
Äpplarö are wooden patio furniture
Solleron are outdoor sofas
Mastholmen are outdoor coffee tablesThen the categories are subdivided, “Bathroom items: Names of Swedish lakes and bodies of water
Linens: Flowers and plants Bedroom and Living Room Furniture: Norwegian places
Bookcases: Professions and Scandinavian boy’s names.” Many of us have assembled their most basic bookcase, the Billy book case. I know I have, and surely have not forgotten the name.So, following this trend, a furniture store in Canada, began naming its products too. Unfortunately, they gave their rubbish bins a few Arabic names : Wahid and Waseem. Fortunately, or unfortunately, “Wahid or vaheed is an Arabic masculine given name, meaning “One”, “Absolute One”. Al-Wahid is one of the 99 names of Allah.” This offended the Arab community, and now the matter is being scrutinized by the ethics committee.
Shaahayda and not Shaheda (Respelled after discussions with Marianne to reflect my myth)
Hello All,
I am going to repeat James, “I simply cannot over emphasize how much I love Stephen’s articulation of this area we have been discussing in relation to the larger topic. This along with the pictures that have been added really open up this intimate connection of the personal to the larger realms Joseph describes. It’s like he is right here with us. Stephen; this is truly such a wonderfully inspired post; thank you!”
But am compelled to add what went straight to the heart, “Second, I wanted to offer a glimpse into how Campbell approached symbols as more than just words on a page. He thought of a mythic symbol as “an energy-evoking and -directing agent” generating a response that “bypasses the brain and dilates the heart.” That energy-evoking directing agent which bypasses the brain is simply divine.
Shaahayda
Dear Dennis Slattery,
Thank you for your very generous response to my post. Also, there are so many poignant and fascinating posts, from Marianne, James, R(cubed) and Stephen that I feel I must read many times, and formulate a decent response, so as to stay in the loop.
One other topic that I wish to extend is again “ the invisible lining of a jacket or coat is what I would call history’s inner myth; it gives shape and contour to the outer sleeve, which is history itself. Yes, the sleeve can be turned inside-out to reveal the hidden myth, and that is part of Campbell’s mode of excavation: he turns the sleeve inside-out in order to explore the mystery shaping history.” Is it possible for you to shed light on what could happen or has happened if the sleeve is never outside, it’s turned inside out right from the start, and the myth is no longer hidden.
I think Rene Girard, whom Prof. Norland Téllez introduced here in this forum, says that Christianity failed to become a myth, the myth was killed, because the church maintained that Jesus was innocent. (hope I am right in citing Rene Girard). First Jesus had to be found guilty of disobeying the law, then later when the sleeve is turned inside out the myth would be revealed. So, my first big question is, do myths always have to have that time lapse?
James wrote, “I particularly like the image you use of the Spiral; which reminds me of the: “Ariadne thread and the Labyrinth” as symbolic of one’s inner journey of transformation; and I very much look forward to your thoughts on this. ” James thank you for this insightful reference. I too look forward to your thoughts on the spiral. Is unravelling of the spiral = revealing the hidden myth?
Thank you all and looking forward to the podcast
Shaahayda
Dear Dr. Dennis Slattery,
So honored to be writing to you in this interactive session, and for jcf.org to make this interaction possible from the ease and comfort of our homes — Is this not our our new myth, aka as our new technology? This is our new landscape, the sun or the moon above, our cyber cloud which is now also the very essence of our beings. Our lives run around it, and in this pandemic, so do our livelihoods. I’ll touch upon it a bit later as well.
You wrote, “Here is my image: the invisible lining of a jacket or coat is what I would call history’s inner myth; it gives shape and contour to the outer sleeve, which is history itself. Yes, the sleeve can be turned inside-out to reveal the hidden myth, and that is part of Campbell’s mode of excavation: he turns the sleeve inside-out in order to explore the mystery shaping history.” I love your example — the ‘fabri-cation’ as you well describe. There is a time-lapse between the inside and the outside of the sleeve, and would I be correct in saying , when it’s turned outside it becomes a myth. Two thoughts came to my mind, with your example:
1) Alan Watts’ on myth: ” that myth is that whose time has yet not come.” or as in Joe Campbell quoting Alan Watts: “Alan Watts used to tell the story of the Apollo astronaut who came back from space; some smart-aleck reporter asked, since he’d been to heaven, had he seen God? ‘Yes,’ answered the astronaut, ‘and she’s black.” Myth is divined and not stated, said Watts.
2) Ray Grasse in his essay (Grasse, Ray, “The Mythologist: Brief Encounters with Joseph Campbell” Quest 106:3, pg 26-29 ) comes upon the same idea as he tries to decode Joe’s offhand remark, for example, “ Trying to digest it all sometimes felt like trying to drink from a fire-hose. Even his passing asides were provocative—intellectual depth charges that released their power only later on. Like his offhand remark that ‘Hitler set out to create the Third Reich but gave birth to the state of Israel instead.’” A sleeve inside out, or the myth of creating manifestation.
Again, I love what you wrote, “Nor can myths be divorced from the inventions and discoveries of the time in which they surface. Indeed, I sense in Campbell that myths survive by accommodating such discoveries, especially those of science. This discipline has knocked down the walls “from around all mythologies—every single one of them—by the findings and works of modern scientific discovery.” (81) Yes indeed, Campbell said it on his famous PBS series with Moyers, “Computers are old testament gods, lots of rules and no mercy” from jcf.org quotes.
Allow me to elaborate a few lines from my thesis. Around 1999, I worked on my Master’s thesis where my core argument was that internet technology is not just a mere modern scientific discovery, but fits right in with the sociological function of mythology as described by Joe Campbell. The sociological function, according to Campbell, is the way we write laws and the way we do business, or better put, “sociological function is to pass down “the law,” the moral and ethical codes for people of that culture to follow, and which help define that culture and its prevailing social structure. “ So, my argument was that the new technology (our new mythic landscape) will soon drive the way we do business and the way we write laws. I was able to project this much before the era of youtube (circa 2005) videos (as evidence in law suits). Intellectual Property Law has been rewritten and is being rewritten. Facebook (2004) –Our business advertising model has been turned upside down with Facebook. Amazon (1994) — ‘we dance to it, even when we can’t name the tune’ (Joe Campbell- Power of Myth). Although Campbell did say, “ You can’t predict what a myth is going to be any more than you can predict what you’re going to dream tonight ” (jcf.org) Yet, I can argue, one can view the sleeve turned inside out, and imagine the impact of the new landscape on our lives, on the myths we live by.
Ray Grasse: “For a man in his late seventies, his vitality and enthusiasm were remarkable, as was his ability to rattle off volumes of information on a wide range of topics without ever relying on notes. Trying to digest it all sometimes felt like trying to drink from a firehose. Even his passing asides were provocative—intellectual depth charges that released their power only later on.” Drinking from a fire hose is not easy, but we can take a few drops here and there and rejoice in what we think we saw.
Returning to the intro part of your essay, “I feel like I am in a personal conversation with a priest or a confessor, one who understands the need for the transcendent in our lives and is prepared to point me in the right direction. I think this feeling emerges because Campbell’s storytelling gene is a part of all of his utterances, but especially when he works a concept by morphing it into a narrative. ” Campbell has pointed so many of us in some direction and which years later they can view as sleeves turned inside out. Ever so grateful to this thinker, scholar, poet-seer.
Shaahayda
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, knowledge and love of Joe Campbell, once again, in this forum. I love reading all that you write, and do wish to hear you speak in person, or sit in in one of your classes.
As you wrote, “Like so many millions, I came to Campbell’s work through the Bill Moyers series on PBS. I was mesmerized by both his knowledge, his passion and the visuals that accompanied his talks. I ran to the bookstore and bought The Power of Myth that I still return to.” Ditto! I had Joe’s books, 1) The Mythic Image, 2) Hero with a thousand faces. It was very difficult to read and understand any of it. So, there they took their place on the top level of my book case, more as those artistic books, that can be judged by their beautiful covers. That is actually that had lured me to the first book, about 15 years ago. Then came those famous Bill Moyers and Campbell series, and I was hooked – the timing was right, and I was drawn by Joe’s words, like never before. More like a religious experience,
On the topic of a mystical state, you wrote, “Steve, as to being only a scholar, well, that is only the tip of the iceberg. Not many scholars can rouse an audience with the Eros that Campbell had a reputation for doing; when I watched him on videos, it seems that he goes into a bit of a mystical state of mind and body and speaks from that deeply incarnated place. His passion is rare and anyone who has heard him speak–I did once in 1974 when he came to the University of Dallas to lecture on Hero–I was entranced by his level of knowledge and the ease of his presentation..”
I once met a man who had attended Joe’s lecture at Loyola University in Montreal Canada, in 1972.. He had this to say about Joe’s lecture, “It was a cold cold day, and not many had turned up for the Loyola Campus, guest speaker series, for which Joe was invited. I was one of the few who sat in the audience, and had never heard of him before then. But Campbell spoke with such passion, as if the hall was full and he was in another theatre, not this present one.” This man jumped into Joe’s works with as much enthusiasm as Joe himself had demonstrated in his presentation.
Here is a link referencing that lecture. “Joseph Campbell Man of Myth here Oct 16.
Click to access Happening-1972-10-10.pdf
I have a question to ask you, It’s related to another thread in the COHO, initiated by Stephen, (What’s in a Name). Did not Joe talk about importance or challenge of living by one’s name? Where can I find that discussion? I hope I am not mixing two different writers on the subject. The truth is that Joe’s words have stuck around in my memory bank, even though his books and the underlined passages are long lost. That’s why I am quite convinced that it’s Joe who said it. One day, once again, I plan to surround myself with his works. And my immediate family, might say, ‘she passed away PEACEFULLY, with Joe Campbell’s books by her side.”
Again, many thanks Dennis.
Shaahayda (reimagined after discussions with Marianne Bencivengo)
Hello Stephen,
Such a lovely article. I loved it and the title too, “What’s in a name?”
“Ham-Sa” – What’s in a Name? It could be the sound of my breath, or our breath, it could be the hand of god, hand of Mary or the hand of Fatima, or the hand of Inana, or the hand of Venus. “What’s in a name?”
Thank you for the same. Besides the Hindi/Sanskrit/Urdu meaning of Ham-Sa, the name “Ham-Sa” reminded me of the sacred symbol in many cultures, Judaism and Islam too. The hamsa (Arabic: خمسة khamsah), a palm-shaped amulet worn as a protection or used as a sacred wall-hanging, or used as “Alam” in Shia-Islam. So, “Hamsa” has had a special meaning in my heart, mostly as the hand of Fatima, and now the beautiful breakdown of this word (which by the way, I should know very well) added another dimension to this symbol.
In Hindi/Urdu, Ham means “I” or We, and Sa, is usually, combined with Jai (life) so Jai-Sa, meaning like or as (masculine gender) or Jai(life) and Jai-Si (feminine gender). So, Saying “Ham Jai-Si or Ham Jai-Sa” is as common as saying “you know” for the English speaking. Hence “Ham Jai-Sa” = “Like me” or “As me” or “Like us” or “As us”.
Imagine that — such a deep word, so commonly used in my soul-language, and I never knew its significance as Joe explains, “This is a song we all sing. If you focus on your breath, you’ll hear the sound “ham,” just barely audible, every time you inhale—and the syllable “sa” sounds with every exhale. “Ham-sa, ham-sa,” sings our breath all day, all night, all one’s life, making known the inner presence of this wild gander to all with the ears to hear. ”
Yes indeed, “Mythic symbols, for Campbell, are more than just words on a page. Embodied in pictures, figurines, a car’s nickname, a book’s title, or even one’s own breath, they serve as touchstones that pitch the mind past the material world, to that which transcends.”
With gratitude
Shaheda
Hello Stephen and R³,
As a matter of fact, the entire discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization (ICV) owes a lot to trains and tangents. Recent research indicates that ICV could be 8,000 years old, even older than initially thought of. A group of researchers in India have used carbon dating techniques on animal remains and pottery fragments to conclude that the Indus Valley settlements could be 8,000 years old—2,500 years older than previously dated. The following piece from ‘Live History India” is an apt example of the role of trains in the discovery of ICV.
The civilization was first officially identified in 1921-1922….. The first major IVC site to be officially identified was Harappa in 1921, followed by Mohenjo-Daro in 1922…” What happened, was that in 1856, the British were constructing a Railway line connecting the cities of Lahore and Karachi along the Indus River, when some of the workers discovered some ancient bricks. Not knowing their importance, they used them in their construction work. Among the bricks, they also found some stone seals, with very intricate markings, and almost forty years later, in 1861, the discovery along the railway lines in Harappa led to the formation of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI).”
Read More at this link.
Hello R cubed,
Fascinating paranas! Each had me spellbound. I loved the Yogi with his 50 wives the best, but yes, Alexander’s men meeting the half naked sun worshippers was just super. Joe’s interpretation adds to the illuminating part. Thanks for enriching my world.
Shaheda
Hello R³,
Thank you so much for all the references and explorations of R³. Although, I am familiar with R³ — referring to Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic, the book Mark Twain and the three R(s) did consist of essays on Race, then on Religion and then on Revolution. Talking about race, there was an essay on racism in India because of the British. The scene is a railway carriage, and the essay is, “Slavery by any other name”. It was in “The Innocents Abroad”.
I have not looked into “Aims of Indian Life (Audio: Lecture II.4.5)” just because there has been much to attend to but now I am ready to be spell bound by the stories that you say are ‘delightful, spellbinding and illuminating’ .
Thanks
Shaheda
Hello R cubed,
Thank you ever so much for the link to “Four Aims of Indian Life (Audio: Lecture II.4.5)”. Interesting that Joe Campbell puts it this way, “They had all been students of Aristotle and Plato and so forth. And they thought they were going to have an interesting conversation with like-minded Oriental spirits.. — Joseph Campbell” I am going to listen to that Audio Lecture tonight.
Indian historians say, “After conquering the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, the Macedonian king Alexander, launched a campaign into the Indian subcontinent in present-day Pakistan, part of which formed the easternmost territories of the Achaemenid Empire following the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley (late 6th century BC). After gaining control of the former Achaemenid satrapy of Gandhara, including the city of Taxila, Alexander advanced into Punjab, where he engaged in battle against the regional king Porus, whom Alexander defeated in the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC,[1][2]”
Another interesting tidbit from Wikipedia, “The Greek writers mention the priestly class of Brahmanas (as “Brachmanes”), who are described as teachers of Indian philosophy.[16] They do not refer to the existence of any religious temples or idols in India, although such references commonly occur in their descriptions of Alexander’s campaigns in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Iran. Greek accounts mention naked ascetics called gymnosophists. A philosopher named Calanus (probably a Greek transcription of the Indian name “Kalyana”) accompanied Alexander to Persepolis, where he committed suicide on a public funeral pyre: he was probably a Jain or an Ajivika monk. Curiously, there is no reference to Buddhism in the Greek accounts.[17]” Taxila is chock full of Buddhist temples and stupas, so why was Buddhism not mentioned?
Shaheda
Hello Stephen,
Thank you very much for sharing your personal train journeys on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, “traveling from the Bay Area up to Seattle past Mt. Shasta and through the beautiful snow clad mountains of northern California and Oregon on into Washington”. Must be memorable indeed. Such a fascinating story behind “Harvey Houses” & “Harvey Girls” for providing a hearty meals to the travelers. Thank you for sharing your mom’s time as a Harvey Girl. The Sierra Nevada foothills, along the Verde River Canyon in Arizona, Colorado and Southern Railroad in the Rockies are all on my to do list. A friend and I planned on the Sierra Nevada Amtrak trip until Covid-19 came along. Just a week before the Canada-US borders closed, I did the Denver Rocky Mountain Getaway. Just beautiful.
On the east coast, my last memorable Amtrak journey was on the Vermonter, which begins in Washington DC, and meanders through the Hudson Valley, the shimmering blue lakes, and the the most gorgeous Hudson River. It stops in St. Albans, Vermont, and then after a border check, the Train switches tracks, and engine driver + other staff, to join the Canadian side of the railway line. From St. Albans, it’s just a 40 minute train ride into Montreal’s great “Garre Central”. Joe Campbell described Montreal’s underground train stations as “Alladin’s cave”. I am not sure exactly where I read this but I also met two individuals who said they attended his lecture, given on the campus of Lyolla College, Montreal. “What an amazing man, and what an awesome lecture”, they said. Now I am going in tangents again!!
“..we rode more than an hour on the outside platform at the front of the locomotive (which you can see in the photo below – alas, we don’t have a good one of us there), at over 10,000 feet elevation – quite a rush! ” I can just imagine! On that note, I have a recommendation, one place to visit and a must train trip to observe, nature’s granite mountains, the elevation, the rustic scenes, the deep lakes, the silent forests, the old fishing villages, fjords, waterfalls~~~~~ infinite beauty, is Norway’s Train Journeys, especially, Norway in a Nutshell – Fjord journeys.
I do want to follow R’s(cubed) reference to Joe Campbell and Taxilla. Also, I want very much to read Nandu’s discussion of where he disagrees with Campbell. Did he publish that piece? Here, we have so much to read, digest, absorb, and engage.
Shaheda
Hello R³ and Stephen,
So very sorry to go on these tangents in the Quotes database, Stephen. I don’t know how I did it, but will be mindful next time.
R³, my very first thoughts on R³: 1. I thought of a book I found many years ago in a book store called Double Day. It was a book of Mark Twain’s stories and essays, titled: “Mark Twain and the Three R’S: Race, Religion, Revolution – And Related Matters. Hardcover – October 1, 1973”
So, at first I thought you had named yourself after that book, the one edited by Maxwell Geismer, who was Mark Twain’s biographer as well. Later, it came to me that you were one of the prolific writers on the Mythic Saloon. And now I know who you are. Thank you for the suspense. Thank you also for sharing Atlas Shrugged trailer and Arlo Guthrie’s song. No, unfortunately, I have not read Ayn Rand.On trains, I can think of a few great writers, one being Mark Twain, and the other being Edith Nesbit (children’s books, especially, The Railway Children). Mark Twain described Indian Railway Stations and the condition of the third class compartments in “Following the Equator, Volume 2” . Here is a passage on the Indian Trains (nothing like my experience) but of course a masterpiece description.
“January 30. What a spectacle the railway station was, at train-time! It was a very large station, yet when we arrived it seemed as if the whole world was present–half of it inside, the other half outside, and both halves, bearing mountainous head-loads of bedding and other freight, trying simultaneously to pass each other, in opposing floods, in one narrow door. These opposing floods were patient, gentle, long-suffering natives, with whites scattered among them at rare intervals; and wherever a white man’s native servant appeared, that native seemed to have put aside his natural gentleness for the time and invested himself with the white man’s privilege of making a way for himself by promptly shoving all intervening black things out of it. In these exhibitions of authority Satan was scandalous. He was probably a Thug in one of his former incarnations.”
http://learningindia.in/mark-twain-on-an-indian-train/
The rest of this gem can be found above.
“The Indian trains are manned by natives exclusively. The Indian stations except very large and important ones–are manned entirely by natives, and so are the posts and telegraphs. The rank and file of the police are natives. All these people are pleasant and accommodating. One day I left an express train to lounge about in that perennially ravishing show, the ebb and flow and whirl of gaudy natives, that is always surging up and down the spacious platform of a great Indian station; and I lost myself in the ecstasy of it, and when I turned, the train was moving swiftly away. I was going to sit down and wait for another train, as I would have done at home; I had no thought of any other course. But a native official, who had a green flag in his hand, saw me, and said politely:
“Don’t you belong in the train, sir?”
“Yes.” I said.
He waved his flag, and the train came back! And he put me aboard with as much ceremony as if I had been the General Superintendent. They are kindly people, the natives”
Please read this (if you have not read Twain’s Indian Train Journeys), because after this one, we can discuss Twain’s 1868 story “Cannibalism in the Cars,” where he recounted a chilling tale he claimed to have heard from a United States congressman who had once been trapped onboard with 24 colleagues.”
Shaheda
Hello Dr. Norland,
Thank you for your wonderful suggestion for listening to his interviews, and then to pick up “Violence and the Sacred”. Yes, I am already deep into listening to this great mind, although, still on the first two videos. I listen to the interviews over and over again. It’s making a bit of a dent there, and I am enjoying his thoughts very much.
Shaheda
Thank you dear R³ (R-cubed) so if the value of R = zero, then you could be Triple R?
More than Kell or Quell, the name R³ fascinates me. What is the background to this name?
You wrote, “I have an ongoing poetic entendre infatuation with vehicles or vessels of conveyance of which trains are one. ” I have a fascination with trains too, but mostly the trains and travel style inherited by India-Pakistan — legacy of the British Raj, not the India-Pakistan style where passengers are packed like sardines. I wrote a story about my life growing up in the Railway system of the late 50s early 60s. I’ll attach it as a PDF here. These days much is being written about “Taxilla”, the town that was our family’s weekend destination.
Ok, no PDF options here, so I’ll paste a few paragraphs from my railway journeys:
RAWALPINDI – UNFORGETTABLE TRAIN JOURNEYS
Over the years, I have travelled long distances and also short distances, high speed (TGV) and also not so high speed. Some train journeys were made for pleasure and some for work, some to meet friends and relatives and some to bid them adieu, but, my Pindi train journeys transcend them all.
A posting at the Rawalpindi Offices of Pakistan Western Railways (PWR) was a Railway officer’s dream. Among many other perks, the posting guaranteed a Railway Saloon, also known as “home on wheels” for travelling all parts of the country, wherever railway lines and steam engines could go.
Rawalpindi Train Station
Senior Officers were allocated air-conditioned saloon cars with bedrooms (at least two), two bathrooms, a dining area complete with china, crockery and cutlery, which converted to a drawing room, during the day. Beyond the bathrooms were two sleeping alcoves, one for the onboard-cook and the other for chaprasi, their private toilets, and a kitchen fully equipped with old cast iron cooking stoves and oven — legacy of the British Raj. Some Senior Officers shared their Saloons.
My father ‘s job came with two small private saloons, one for the narrow-gauge and one for broad-gauge, both for my father’s exclusive use. The smaller saloons were not air-conditioned, and immensely uncomfortable to travel during hot summer months, but autumn and winter guaranteed, unconditionally, some heavenly travels.
The broad-gauge saloon for my father’s tours and our weekend or holiday trips was Saloon Number 245, size of a large studio apartment with a bathroom, attendants’ sleeping alcoves and another tiny toilet, and a kitchen. Besides the dedicated Saloons, PWR, also provided a parking spot, known as a railway siding, which was about 1/3rd of a mile from our front gate, near the Power Station. To board our saloon, and head out of Pindi towards Peshawar, while stopping at various small and large railway stations, required that we walk out through the front gate of our house on Westridge Road, board our saloon, which stood just 1/3rd mile down the road at its special railway siding along the road. Soon a steam engine would arrive, attach itself to the saloon, and then pull us out of the siding onto the main railway lines, leading to the Rawalpindi Railway Station. There it would attach the saloon to either a fully packed passenger train or a goods train (freight train). And the operation would be reversed for our return journey, that is, the saloon would be detached from the train at the Rawalpindi Railway Station, pulled off the main railway lines, and installed along Westridge Road’s Railway Siding.
Our railway journeys took us through rich wheat fields, villages, flowing rivers, dark tunnels and bridges. Sweet and gentle villagers herding their goats, tending their livestock, using water wheels to irrigate their land and perhaps fetch water for personal consumption. Such were some of the sights that played peek-a-boo, as our train travelled from Rawalpindi to Nowshera and Peshawar on the western tracks.
Weekends and holidays from September through March, involved train journeys through cosy villages infused with sweet scent of toasted green chickpeas (chanas), dried apricots from Afghanistan, other dried fruits and apricots that overflowed push carts (rehri?) and took over the oily-smoky scent of our freight train. Pleasant scenes and sad scenes all came and went like a kaleidoscope in motion. There were sad and sorrowful times of flooded mud-huts, with villagers and livestock swimming together, as if to say, “ we are coming to the same oasis for rest and rescue” Young boys and girls waving at the train, wondering whether the engine driver and the few passengers(us) were part of a rescue mission.
At the train station, the conductor and the engine driver exchanged personal and non-personal information with local vendors and service providers; documents and goods exchanged hands; sometimes in the dark of the night and sometimes during the early morning hours, or mid-day as our train moved along familiar railway stations. There was much love and generosity in the hearts of these villagers. While loading their harvests, they smiled, graciously waved, and gladly sold us large baskets of plums, pears, apricots etc., (Rupee 1 for each basket) It’s almost impossible to describe the expression of joy that the fruit exchange brought to their faces.
“Taxila Junction” was always one place that our saloon rested. While my father worked, inspected and discussed freight trains signals and procedures, we toured the museum and its various sites. Another advantage of being the only passenger saloon on a goods train was that we did not have to pack up and get off at our destination. The engine driver, a guard, with a lantern and the steam engine, handled all the logistics. In less than an hour, our saloon would be detached from the goods train, moved away from the main lines, and installed safely on the railway siding at the Taxila Station.
All that which is on exhibit at the Taxila Musuem’s website is still fresh and alive in my memory bank–we saw the immensely rich gold-pieces, the iron tools, Buddha statues, spoons, plates, nails, keys, art and art pieces, relics of the period that people cross continents to see and admire.
https://archaeology.punjab.gov.pk/taxila-museums
Shaheda
