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If you have been living anywhere in India for long enough, you know that getting around is one big challenge, no matter which part of the country you stay in and if you are like most Indians, a cribbing tantrum must have been in the works for you at some point of time or other, complaining about the deplorable state of public transportation. The fact though is that transportation in India wasn’t always like this. So this 70th Independence Day let’s travel through time and reminisce about the most popular forms of transport in India since Independence. C’mon, you know you miss your childhood travels!
(Picture source: © K.L.Kamat/Kamat’s Potpourri)
Let’s begin our journey in a rather slow mode of transport. The glorious Bullock Cart! India would have really struggled if the bullock cart had not been invented. All through the 40s to the 80s the bullock cart remained extremely important for the average Indian. More often than not, pulled by rather lean but muscular looking oxen. Yes! the Bullock refers to an Ox and not to Bulls, much to a lot of people’s astonishment. If you were travelling on the bullock cart, you would sit in the front with the driver and your load, which mostly was something agrarian would go in the back. Owning their own personal bullock cart was every farmer’s dream. That’s a lot of people since at the time of independence 80% of the population earned their income from agriculture. You can still find the bullock cart today, though it has lost the one time glory of importance that it had. ALSO READ: Top 10 Hindi songs for Independence Day 2016: Bollywood patriotic songs that will reignite the fire of patriotism!
(Picture Source: Ebay India)
If you were from a rich family in the 1940s and especially if you were a woman, you might have traveled in a palanquin. Basically the palanquin consisted of a box placed atop two rods and carried by four pole bearers. The palanquin has, unfortunately for the snobbish and fortunately for the pole bearers, become obsolete today. So the only way you’ll experience it is through what I say or if you play the role of a medieval queen in a drama! Imagine having to crawl into a tight box mostly covered on all four sides, once you were cramped inside, you would be lifted off the ground. Definitely not for the claustrophobic. If the height of your palanquin bearers did not match, you would travel in a slope all through your ride, which would indeed be a bumpy one and at the end of it you wouldn’t have reached far. In fact I’m sure you must be thinking that you might have well just walked the distance. Well I certainly don’t disagree. ALSO READ: Independence Day celebration: No selfies in front of national monuments, says Tourism Ministry
(Picture Source: autocarindia.com)
I am sure all this talk of walking, makes you wonder why there were no cars. Worry not ! I give you a right choice of cars to choose from. When it comes to cars there is only and will be only one king in India, The Hindustan Ambassador. The car that was popularly called Amby or Ambassador. The Ambassador ruled the roads of India for nearly six decades. What made it so popular? Well for one, the closed economy of India ensured that importing cars was not viable and for another Ambassador was sturdy as a rock and had enough space to fit the big fat Indian family. The classic sofa seat in the front is something that you will never find again. The only car that truly gave any competition to Ambassador was Premier Padmini. Never heard of it? Probably because you would have known it as The Fiat. The main difference was that Ambassador belonged mainly to government babus and Fiat to the pro-capitalists. Don’t get all excited though, till the late 80’s, if you were like 90% of the Indians, catching a glimpse of either car was like catching a glimpse of God at a temple. Post 1991, you would see the Amby as black and yellow taxies, snaking through roads. Even today you can see streets of metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata flooded with the trusty Amby and Fiat taxis. In fact this Independence day show a bit of nationalism, if you’re travelling by taxi, pick the old black and yellow Ambassador instead of an Uber or Ola ! (ALSO READ: Government chalks out plan to celebrate ‘Festival of Independence’ )
(Picture Source: Wikipedia Commons File)
After 1970’s, a lot of the people in the country started undertaking cross country travel. Not for entertainment purposes, but mainly in search of their bread and butter. Ah ! That’s where the hardy old Indian railways comes in. They began quite earlier on though, in the year 1853 the first train ran from Mumbai to Thane. Most Indians crib on the state of our trains, but look at it this way, not many people can say they are living through history. Yes my friend, except for the cushioning added on to berths, the Indian Railways has remained exactly the same as when it was introduced. There are two trains in India though that are indeed brands of their own. The Rajdhani and the Shatabdi, the fastest trains in India till now. Their speed is much below the global average speed for normal trains, forget high-speed rails worldwide, but in India, travelling in them brings along a sense of royalty that doesn’t even come with flight travel. ALSO READ: 6 Easy dressing tips to win that Independence Day dressing contest!
However, after the eighties, people wanted to own some form of private transport to get around other than cycles. Ambassador and Fiat still remained unaffordable for the common man. That is where the Bajaj Scooter came in. With a ready spare tyre in the back, a compartment in the side to put possessions in, the Bajaj scooter, commonly called the Bajaj, was what office goers took to their place of work. On weekends, like most Indian classic vehicles, the sturdy Bajaj scooter fitted the entire family of four and took them to their travel destinations. The iconic Bajaj scooter is no longer in production but it will go down in history as the most extensively used two wheeler. That title will always remain with Hamara Bajaj.
(Picture Source Wikipedia Commons File )
Are you tired already? Do you wish that you could just come to the present, catch at least a Spice Jet flight and fly off somewhere? Worry not friends, this Independence Day lets see how your travelling woes are going to be set free. Well for one, most major cities are introducing Metros. The model for metros seems to be the Delhi Metro which has become a real success since it was commissioned in 2001. Though Posh, underground and truly world class, with the bursting population of India, the metro cars too remain jam-packed. The Delhi Metro truly is an improvement to the rustic Mumbai local. Alongside Delhi, you’ll also come across metros in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Ahmadabad. But even better than metros, in another two years time, you will be witnessing India’s first Bullet Train. The first bullet train is to run from Mumbai to Ahmadabad. Much like aeroplanes, when you travel in a bullet train, you won’t even feel the movement but you’ll have the advantage of witnessing India’s beautiful landscape instead of just plain, white clouds.
(Picture Source: ANI)
Affordable. posh, reliable and super fast the bullet train symbolises everything that India has become in seventy years. So this Independence Day cherish the past modes of transport that got us till here and zip through the country with transportation of the future. Cheers !
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