Indian Railways Quotes

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The trains [in a country] contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Ceylonese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks, Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes, Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. The railway bazaar with its gadgets and passengers represented the society so completely that to board it was to be challenged by the national character. At times it was like a leisurely seminar, but I also felt on some occasions that it was like being jailed and then assaulted by the monstrously typical.
Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia)
The question of vernaculars as media of instruction is of national importance; neglect of the vernaculars means national suicide.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Gift of life is the greatest of all gifts;
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
It is a known fact that the third class traffic pays for the ever-increasing luxuries of first and second class travelling. Surely a third class passenger is entitled at least to the bare necessities of life.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
pestilentially
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
weary
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Yiddish
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Boer
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
If we are unmanly today, we are so, not because we do not know how to strike, but because we fear to die.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
If we have lost faith in our vernaculars, it is a sign of want of faith in ourselves; it is the surest sign of decay.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
He is the true soldier who knows how to die and stand his ground in the midst of a hail of bullets.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
I am an enthusiast myself, but twenty-five years of experimenting and experience have made me a cautious and discriminating enthusiast.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Indeed, the proper practice of Ahimsa requires me to withdraw the intended victim from the wrong-doer,
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Ahimsa requires deliberate self-suffering, not a deliberate injuring of the supposed wrong-doer.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
How many Indians today would want to call a vote to divest themselves of democracy, English, the railway network, the legal system, cricket and tea on the grounds that they are imperial legacies?
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
A helpless girl in the hands of a follower of Ahimsa finds better and surer protection than in the hands of one who is prepared to defend her only to the point to which his weapons would carry him.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.
Christopher Hitchens
Report by the Railway Board on Indian Railways for 1938-39. It contained, among other things, photographs to show how efficient Indian Railways was. A set of two pictures, reproduced side by side, caught my eye: both pictures were of the Lucknow railway station—one showed the Mohammedan Refreshment Room and the other, the Hindu Refreshment Room. Patrons in both the refreshment rooms could be seen dining happily, served by liveried waiters.
Bishwanath Ghosh (Gazing at Neighbours: Travels Along the Line That Partitioned India)
My patriotism is both exclusive and inclusive. It is exclusive in the sense that in all humility I confine my attention to the land of my birth, but it is inclusive in the sense that my service is not of a competitive or antagonistic nature
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
If there is any substance in what I have said, will not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a deep debt of gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising while continuing their philanthropic work?
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
How many Indians today would want to call a vote to divest themselves of democracy, English, the railway network, the legal system, cricket and tea on the grounds that they are imperial legacies? And if they did, wouldn’t the very act of calling a vote to decide the issue demonstrate their debt to their former overlords?
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
The trains in any country contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Singhalese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks, Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes, Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. The railway bazaar, with its gadgets and passengers, represented the society so completely that to board it was to be challenged by the national character.
Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (Penguin Modern Classics))
All this fantastic effort—giant machines, road networks, strip mines, conveyor belt, pipelines, slurry lines, loading towers, railway and electric train, hundred-million-dollar coal-burning power plant; ten thousand miles of high-tension towers and high-voltage power lines; the devastation of the landscape, the destruction of Indian homes and Indian grazing lands, Indian shrines and Indian burial grounds; the poisoning of the last big clean-air reservoir in the forty-eight contiguous United States, the exhaustion of precious water supplies—all that ball-breaking labor and all that backbreaking expense and all that heartbreaking insult to land and sky and human heart, for what? All that for what? Why, to light the lamps of Phoenix suburbs not yet built, to run the air conditioners of San Diego and Los Angeles, to illuminate shopping-center parking lots at two in the morning, to power aluminum plants, magnesium plants, vinyl-chloride factories and copper smelters, to charge the neon tubing that makes the meaning (all the meaning there is) of Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Tucson, Salt Lake City, the amalgamated metropoli of southern California, to keep alive that phosphorescent putrefying glory (all the glory there is left) called Down Town, Night Time, Wonderville, U.S.A. They
Edward Abbey (The Monkey Wrench Gang)
The solidity of the building, its quite interiors, the monumental presence of its white facade in the middle of the city- in all its deliberate order and calm, the hotel underlined its separateness from its setting. Its effect was felt most keenly by the menial staff, who traveled each day from their homes in the flood-threatened outskirts of Allahabad and approached their place of work with something like awe. They looked very ill at ease in their green uniforms and were obsequiously polite with guests, calling to mind the Indians who had come to serve in the new city of Allahabad built by the British after the rude shock of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the city whose simple colonial geography was plain from my sixth-floor hostel room, the railway tracks partitioning the congested "black town," with its minarets and temple domes, from the tree-lined grid of "white town," where for a long period no Indians, apart from servants, could appear in native dress.
Pankaj Mishra (Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond)
Now, I suggest four tests to judge whether the Government is progressive, and, further, whether it is continuously progressive. The first test that I would apply is what measures it adopts for the moral and material improvement of the mass of the people, and under these measures I do not include those appliances of modern Governments which the British Government has applied in this country, because they were appliances necessary for its very existence, though they have benefited the people, such as the construction of Railways, the introduction of Post and Telegraphs, and things of that kind. By measures for the moral and material improvement of the people, I mean what the Government does for education, what the Government does for sanitation, what the Government does for agricultural development, and so forth. That is my first test. The second test that I would apply is what steps the Government takes to give us a larger share in the administration of our local affairs—in municipalities and local boards. My third test is what voice the Government gives us in its Councils—in those deliberate assemblies, where policies are considered. And, lastly, we must consider how far Indians are admitted into the ranks of the public service. A
Annie Besant (The Case for India)
The trains in any country contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Ceylonese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar.
Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia)
If we have lost faith in our vernaculars, it is a sign of want of faith in ourselves; it is the surest sign of decay. And no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
The construction of the Death Railway was one of the greatest war crimes of the twentieth century. It was said that one man died for every sleeper laid. Certainly over sixteen thousand of us British, Australian, Dutch, American and Canadian prisoners died on the railway – murdered by the ambitions of the Japanese Imperial Army to complete the lifeline to their forces in Burma by December 1943. Up to a hundred thousand native slaves, Thais, Indians, Malayans and Tamils also died in atrocious circumstances. Even Japanese engineers
Alistair Urquhart (The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific)
The closet was also not cleaned during the journey and there was no water in the water tank.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
The Astral Warrior About thirty years ago in Siliguri district, a jawan named Harbhajan Singh went missing. His body was never found. A few days after his disappearance, some officers who had gone for a trek in the same area reported that they had gotten lost in the forest and Harbhajan had suddenly appeared and helped them find their way back. But Harbhajan did not come back with them, he remained in the forest. Since then, there have been similar reports of people, including civilians, who get lost in the forest, or face some difficulty there. Whenever they pray to Harbhajan Singh to come and help them, he comes. Year after year, the same story is repeated. Now, if so many people talk about how they have been helped, I don’t think it can be false. This is how Harbhajan became Baba Harbhajan Singh. Incredibly, he is still in the roster of the Indian Army. Not only that, his colleagues offer him food every day, and they say the food disappears, the bottle of water also gets empty. Like other Army officers, Harbhajan gets his promotions, now he is a JCO. Every year, he goes home on leave too. The GOC of Siliguri personally goes to his shrine, takes his chappals and photograph to Siliguri railway station and places his chappals and photograph in the train coach. These are then carried to his native place and received there by the commanding officer. After his leave period is over, the chappals and photograph are brought back ceremoniously. The GOC receives them, keeps them at the shrine in the forest, and continues to offer him food. So many people have reported the same story: we were stuck in snowfall, we lost our way, and Baba helped us. And the Indian Army respects this fact, although he doesn’t show up for attendance! Col. Rakesh Aima
Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Indian Armed Forces Soul)
Ahimsa necessarily includes truth and fearlessness.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Hinduism has become a conservative religion and, therefore, a mighty force because of the Swadeshi spirit underlying it. It is the most tolerant because it is non-proselytising, and it is as capable of expansion today as it has been found to be in the past.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Regions and Kings Eastern King Samrat Western King Suvrat Northern King Virat Southern King Bhoja King of middle country Raja   Important Ratnins/Officials in Later Vedic Period Purohita Chief Priest, in also sometimes referred to as Rashtragopa Senani Supreme Commander of army Vrajapati Officer-in-Charge of pasture land Jivagribha Police Officer Spasas/Dutas Spies who also sometimes worked as messengers Gramani Head of the village Kulapati Head of the family Madhyamasi Mediator on disputes Bhagadugha Revenue collector Sangrahitri Treasurer Mahishi Chief Queen Suta Charioteer and court minstrel Govikartana Keeper of games and forests Palagala Messenger Kshatri Chamberlain Akshavapa Accountant Sthapati Chief Justice Takshan Carpenter   Kingdoms in the Later Vedic Age Kingdom Location Gandhar Rawalpindi and Peshawar districts of Western Punjab Kekaya On the bank of River Beas, east of Gandhar kingdom Uttar Madra Kashmir Eastern Madra Near Kangra Southern Madra Near Amritsar Kushinagar Nothern region of modern Uttar Pradesh Panchal Bareilly, Badayun and Farrukhabad districts of modern Uttar Pradesh Kashi Modern Varanasi Koshal Faizabad region of today's Uttar Pradesh
Indian History Editorial Board (Indian History : Subjective: CSAT, IES, NDA/NA, CDS, SCC, NCERT, Railway, Banking, State Services, etc.)
RBB NTPC Result 2016 for CEN 03/2015 Non-Technical Exam for Computer Based Test (CBT) and RRB Non-Technical Result for ASM, Goods Guard, CA Posts RRB Result RRB NTPC Result 2016 is going to be Soon Declared by the Railway Bharti Board.
Ravindra dhewa
no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
This may all sound nonsensical. Well, India is a country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat with thirst when a kindly Mahomedan is ready to offer pure water to drink. And yet thousands of Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink water from a Mahomedan household. These nonsensical men can also, once they are convinced that their religion demands that they should wear garments manufactured in India only and eat food only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
The British had built railways across their Empire with the labour of Asian ‘coolies’. Now, in one of the great symbolic reversals of world history, the Japanese forced 60,000 British and Australian PoWs – as well as Dutch prisoners and conscripted Indian labour – to construct 250 miles of railway through the mountainous jungle on the Thai-Burmese border.
Niall Ferguson (Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World)
The credit system has encircled this beautiful globe of ours like a serpent's coil, and if we do not mind, it bids fair to crush us out of breath.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
I believe that our copying of the European dress is a sign of our degradation, humiliation and our weakness, and that we are committing a national sin in discarding a dress which is best suited to the Indian climate and which, for its simplicity, art and cheapness, is not to be beaten on the face of the earth and which answers hygienic requirements. Had it not been for a false pride and equally false notions of prestige, Englishmen here would long ago have adopted the Indian costume.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
I’ve already mentioned how the LeT raiders at Mumbai nested within the urban metabolism of the two megacities—Karachi and Mumbai—that formed the launching pad and target for their raid. They slipped out of Karachi under cover of the harbor’s dense maritime traffic, blended into the flow of local cargo and fishing fleets, then slipped into Mumbai by nesting within the illicit networks of smuggling, trade flow, and movement of people, exploiting the presence of informal settlements with little government presence (in effect, feral subdistricts) close to the urban core of the giant coastal city. Once ashore, the teams dispersed and blended into the flow of the city’s densest area as they moved toward diversionary targets (taxis, the railway station, a café, a hospital) that had been carefully selected precisely to disrupt the city’s flow, draw off Indian counterterrorism forces, and hamper an effective response, before they hit main targets that had been chosen for sustained local and international media effect.
David Kilcullen (Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla)
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masses follow the classes.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak. FOOTNOTE:
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
I have not the power adequately to describe them without committing a breach of the laws of decent speech.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
But India cannot live for Lancashire or any other country before she is able to live for herself. And she can live for herself only if she produces and is helped to produce everything for her requirements within her own borders. She need not be, she ought not to be, drawn into the vertex of mad and ruinous competition which breeds fratricide, jealousy and many other evils. But who is to stop her great millionaires from entering into the world competition?
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
The motive will determine the quality of the act.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
My patriotism is both exclusive and inclusive. It is exclusive in the sense that in all humility I confine my attention to the land of my birth, but it is inclusive in the sense that my service is not of a competitive or antagonistic nature. Sic utere tuo ut alienum non la is not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand doctrine of life. It is the key to a proper practice of Ahimsa or love. It is for you, the custodians of a great faith, to set the fashion and show, by your preaching, sanctified by practice, that patriotism based on hatred "killeth" and that patriotism based on love "giveth life.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
At first glance the Bible appeared to be a collection of unrelated books of history, poetry, rituals, philosophy, biography, and prophecy held together only by a binder’s stitch and glue. But I only had to read Genesis 11 and 12 to realize that seemingly unrelated and different books of the Bible had a clear plot, a thread that tied together all the books, as well as the Old and the New Testaments. Sin had brought a curse upon all the nations of the earth. God called Abraham to follow him because he wanted to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s descendants.6 It didn’t take long to realize that God’s desire to bless human beings begins in the very first chapter of Genesis and culminates in the last chapter of the last book with a grand vision of healing for all nations.7 The implication was obvious: The Bible was claiming that I should read it because it was written to bless my nation and me. The revelation that God wanted to bless my nation of India amazed me. I realized it was a prediction I could test. It would confirm or deny the Bible’s reliability. If the Bible is God’s word, then had he kept this word? Had he blessed “all the nations of the earth”? Had my country been blessed by the children of Abraham? If so, that would be a good reason for me, an Indian, to check out this book. My investigation of whether God had truly blessed India through the Bible yielded incredible discoveries: the university where I was studying, the municipality and democracy I lived in, the High Court behind my house and the legal system it represented, the modern Hindi that I spoke as my mother tongue, the secular newspaper for which I had begun to write, the army cantonment west of the road I lived on, the botanical garden to the east, the public library near our garden, the railway lines that intersected in my city, the medical system I depended on, the Agricultural Institute across town—all of these came to my city because some people took the Bible seriously.
Vishal Mangalwadi (The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization)
Most former Harvey Girls remembered the good times, the satisfying and happy times of their work. And when reading the reminiscences of the Harvey Girls, it is important to remember that they lived and worked in a time and a society that did not always applaud their choice to “go west” as single women, even when made out of economic necessity. They did not live in a time that admired spunk and independence in working women, despite the American West and its promises of freedom and space. That promise, historians are beginning to realize, was reserved for its male immigrants. The myth of the West was largely a male dream—an adventure of danger, risk, excitement, and high stakes. Neither women nor Indians counted.4 We have learned that both women and Indians did count; the extent of their contributions is still being uncovered. It is only recently, in a society interested in its women’s history, that women like the Harvey Girls have been hailed as contributors to the American story. Only a few decades ago, the women in this book would have told their life stories to a stranger reluctantly, questioning the premise behind so many inquiries into their daily lives. Their pride and enthusiasm for the work they did, the role they played along the Santa Fe Railway, has only now found an appreciative audience.
Lesley Poling-Kempes (The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West)
The poor are almost fashionable. And this idea of intermediate technology has become an aspect of that fashion. The cult in India centres on the bullock cart. The bullock cart is not to be eliminate; after three thousand or more backward years Indian intermediate technology will now improve the bullock cart. 'Do you know,' someone said to me in Delhi, 'that the investment in bullock carts is equivalent to the total investment in the railways?' I had always had my doubts about bullock carts; but I didn't know until then that they were not cheap, were really quite expensive, more expensive than many second-hand cars in England, and that only richer peasants could afford them. It seemed to me a great waste, the kind of waste that poverty perpetuates. But I was glad I didn't speak, because the man who was giving me these statistics went on: 'Now, if we could improve the performance of the bullock cart by ten per cent ...' What did it mean, improving the performance by ten per cent? Greater speed, bigger loads? Were there bigger loads to carry? These were not the questions to ask, though. Intermediate technology had decided that the bullock cart was to be improved. Metal axles, bearings, rubber tyres? But wouldn't that make the carts even more expensive? Wouldn't it take generations, and a lot of money, to introduce these improvements? And, having got so far, mighn't it be better to go just a little further and introduce some harmless little engine? Shouldn't intermediate technology be concentrating on harmless little engines capable of short journeys bullock carts usually make?
V.S. Naipaul (India: A Wounded Civilization)
In a book about Indians I once read that the soul cannot fly as fast as an airplane. Therefore one always loses one’s soul on an airplane journey, and arrives at one’s destination in a soulless state. Even the Trans-Siberian Railway travels more quickly than a soul can fly. The first time I came to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Railway, I lost my soul. When I boarded the train to go back, my soul was still on its way to Europe. I was unable to catch it. When I traveled to Europe once more, my soul was still making its way back to Japan. Later I flew back and forth so many times I no longer know where my soul is. In any case, this is a reason why travelers most often lack souls. And so tales of long journeys are always written without souls.
Yōko Tawada (Where Europe Begins)
Indian Railways is the fourth largest rail network in the world These are the top 5 most luxurious trains which have the best beautiful views from the window of your seat and serve the best hospitality. These trains pass through beautiful places. Surely your experience will be at the next level. Maharajas' Express : It runs between October and April, covering around 12 destinations most of which lie in Rajasthan. Palace on Wheels: The train starts its journey from New Delhi and covers Jaipur, Sawai Madhopur, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bharatpur, and Agra, before returning to Delhi. If you plan on experiencing this royal journey, make sure you have Rs. 3,63,300 to spend! The Golden Chariot : you can take a ride along the Southern State of Karnataka and explore while living like a VIP on wheels. You start from Bengaluru and then go on to visit famous tourist attractions like Hampi, Goa and Mysore to name a few. The Golden Chariot also boasts of a spa, a gym and restaurants too. The Deccan Odyssey: The Deccan Odyssey can give you tours across destinations in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It starts from Mumbai, covers 10 popular tourist locations including Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Goa, Aurangabad, Ajanta-Ellora Nasik, Pune, returning to Mumbai. Maha Parinirvan Express / Buddha Circuit Train: The Buddha Express travels through parts of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, where Buddism originated over 2,500 years ago. This isn’t as opulent as the other luxury Indian trains and instead drops passengers off at hotels at famous tourist destinations such as Bodhgaya, Rajgir and Nalanda.
Indian Railways (Trains at a Glance: Indian Railways 2005-2006)
But India cannot live for Lancashire or any other country before she is able to live for herself. And she can live for herself only if she produces and is helped to produce everything for her requirements within her own borders.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
He looked gloomily out of the misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly Indian officer, who was his only companion, and watched the fleeting landscape, which had a certain phantom-like appearance in its shroud of snow. He wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug, with a peevish shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winter's day.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Lady Audley's Secret)
But English had to yield before Boer patriotism.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
We were greedy and so was England. The connection between England and India was based clearly upon an error.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
Well, India is a country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat with thirst when a kindly Mahomedan is ready to offer pure water to drink. And yet thousands of Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink water from a Mahomedan household.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
The Jews of Middle and Eastern Europe, who are scattered in all parts of the world, finding it necessary to have a common tongue for mutual intercourse, have raised Yiddish to the status of a language, and have succeeded in translating into Yiddish the best books to be found in the world's literature.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
And no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
preparing to practise to the best of my ability. It encourages me to observe that last month you devoted a week to prayer
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
It is not possible to deny of a nation that was capable of producing the caste system its wonderful power of organisation.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
For all her cheekiness, Sonja Schlesin was devoted to Gandhi and his cause. Hers was a double or perhaps triple transgression: a white, Jewish woman expressing her solidarity with persecuted Indian males. Much later, her employer gratefully recalled what his struggle owed her. This ‘young girl’, he wrote, ‘soon constituted herself the watchman and warder of the morality not only of my office but of the whole movement’. Thus Pathans, Patels, ex-indentured men, Indians of all classes and ages surrounded her, sought her advice and followed it. Europeans in South Africa would generally never travel in the same railway compartment as Indians, and in the Transvaal they are even prohibited from doing so. Yet Miss Schlesin would deliberately sit in the third class compartment for Indians like other Satyragrahis and even resist the guards who interfered with her.13
Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi Before India)
soulless soul-force and that its severe discipline has made it merely mechanical. I suppose both—the critics and I—are wrong. It is, at best, a humble attempt to place at the disposal of the nation a home where men and women may have scope for free and unfettered development of character, in keeping with the national genius, and, if its controllers do not take care, the discipline that is the foundation of character may frustrate the very end in view. I would venture, therefore, to warn enthusiasts in co-operation against entertaining false hopes. With Sir Daniel Hamilton it has become a religion. On the 13th January last, he addressed the students of the Scottish Churches College and, in order to point a moral, he instanced Scotland's poverty
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)
The model of the Wheeler stalls was itself rather French. The idea of a railway library cum bookstore was first conceived in the Parisian railway stations, by French publisher, Louis Christophe François Hachette—who later became illustrious and more recognisable by his surname.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
If the railway establishment was the insignia of imperial supremacy in India, the Wheeler stalls were the sign of a successful imitation of British reading culture in the colony.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
That the printed word responded in India, as greatly as in Great Britain, was a sign that the diminishing inhibitions towards the reading of ‘six-penny’ novels in England was emulated perfectly in a colony that had been just recently exposed to the ‘civilising effects of steam.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
As Ruskin Bond points out, the Wheeler bookstores soon joined the list of the pioneers of Indian publishing. The literary experience in India is connected with Wheeler’s to such an extent that the author wrote in the early 1990s of the railway bookstalls being ‘great places for browsing, and I always buy something from them, even if it’s only an astrological guide for the previous month.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
With the decorous and even scholarly publications from Higginbotham’s in the south, there might have been questions raised on the quality of the content sold by Wheeler’s, in the rest of the country.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
Notwithstanding the ecclesiastical resistance to Wheeler’s and its notoriously ‘French’ content— especially books authored by the controversial writer, Emile Zola—the stalls had acquired exclusive rights to sell books on all Indian stations in the north, west and east, and also began issuing advertisements in favour of the Indian Railways. This is how the Wheeler stalls came to be ‘in service of the nation.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
It is no coincidence that Rudyard Kipling’s first novel, and other books, The Story of the Gadsbys, The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Eerie Tales, and Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories, In Black and White, et al, were published under Wheeler’s Railway Library Series. The books were illustrated by his father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was not French, but became equally popular. He was sensational in his own way of fancying militarism and hierarchy.
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
Kipling emerged as India’s first railway raconteur turning the ‘railway compartment…[into] the site for telling stories, as well as for the meetings which give rise to stories.’43
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
The tyrannical aspect of the trains is very effectively explained in Manu Goswami’s phrase, ‘mobile incarceration,
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
the first motion picture in India was set on the railways, as a ‘jerky, silent, short, black and white film,’ Train Arriving at Bombay Station (1898).
Arup Chatterjee (The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography)
Howrah railway station is an ocean of people like most railway stations in the big cities of India.
Tomichan Matheikal (Autumn Shadows)
join me in the crusade against educated Indians abandoning their manners, habits and customs which are not proved to be bad or harmful.
Mahatma Gandhi (Third class in Indian railways)