Mumbai: Railways is endeavouring to make hometown visits more poetic for its commuters, quite literally, by naming long-distance trains after the titles of regional bards’ verses.
The Railway Board has asked Central and Western Railway, apart from its 15 other railway zones across the country, to submit the names of poems by writers from the states through which their trains run whose works have inspired various regions and their people. The renaming of trains is expected to begin in November this year when the Railways will be revising the timetable of existing long-distance trains and introducing new trains.
The idea, according to railway officials, is to celebrate and promote the cultural heritage of each region. Maintaining that the idea is a nascent stage, an official said, “We have just been asked to give names. We are yet to still draw up a list of them.”
The Railway Board thought up the idea as a way to inculcate a sense of ownership among passengers in the hope that it will inculcate better civic sense among commuters.
“You would think twice before damaging a train that is named after the poem that is either a favourite of yours or a family member,” the official further said.
Explaining how language would factor in, another official said, “Since most of the trains on the Central Railway originate from Maharashtra, their names will draw from Marathi poems, while those on the Western Railway will have Gujarati poem names as well.”
POETIC JOURNEY
- Konkan Railway renamed the popular Dadar-Sawantwadi Express as the Tutari Express after a work by revolutionary Marathi poet Krishnaji Keshav Damle (1866-1905), who wrote under the pen name ‘Keshavasuta’. The poem was a patriotic call to Indians to rise up against the British rule.
- The Gitanjali Express, which plies from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to Howrah is named after the Nobel Prize-winning collection of 103 English poems, largely translations, by the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941).
- Hatey Bazare, which plies from Sealdah in West Bengal to Saharsa in Bihar is named after the popular Bengali novel by Banaphool, the pen name of Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay (1899–1979).
- The Kaifiyat Express, which runs between Azamgarh and Delhi, is named after the Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi (1919-2002). He is also actor Shabana Azmi’s father.
