One morning when I was visiting my parents in 2017, my father leaned over and asked me to read a small paragraph in The Hindu. It was a tiny news item about a train service called the Lanka Boat Mail. After decades of continuous service, the train was ceasing operations. I read about how the train used to go from Madras to the end of the line in Dhanushkodi, at the very tip of the state of Tamil Nadu. From there, the passengers would board a ferry boat (hence the train’s name) to Thalaimaanar in Ceylon, transfer over to another train waiting for them which would take them on to Colombo. “When I was a boy, I used to take this train daily,” my father said. What follows is the story about Thanjavur, Trichy, and the Boat Mail which my father, Narasimhan, shared that day.

In the early 1950’s Narasimhan’s father, Ranganathan was transferred from Guntur in the state of Andhra Pradesh to Thanjavur. Ranganathan worked as an Inspector for the Indian Postal Service, a job that required a lot of travel and frequent transfers. His family had not accompanied him to his Guntur posting, but the entire family moved with him to Thanjavur. Around the time of his transfer to Thanjavur, Ranganathan’s wife, Jayalakshmi, had given birth to their seventh child. Jayalakshmi’s father, who assisted her in helping raise the big family also moved to Thanjavur along with them. Ranganathan was the sole earner, but a Postal Inspector’s income was just not sufficient for the growing family’s expenses. Money was a constant issue and Jayalakshmi had to scrimp daily, sometimes borrowing from relatives and neighbors in order to get by until the next month’s salary came in.

Above all else, the Ranganathan family valued a good education. Soon after moving to Thanjavur, the eldest son, Narasimhan, had to be admitted to a good high school. However, there were no good high schools in Thanjavur in the early 1950s. It was just a few years after India’s independence. Many people recommended St. Joseph’s College, a school with an excellent academic reputation, located in the nearby bigger city of Trichy. They decided to send Narasimhan to St. Joseph’s.

Sending the boy to a school in Trichy meant a daily train journey and an added expense. Narasimhan asked around and learned about a heavily discounted rail pass, open only to daily commuters. He was told that as a student he would be eligible to buy the pass. Thanks to that pass they were able to afford his daily travel.

And so, for every single school day from 1954 to 1956, Narasimhan boarded the Lanka Boat Mail and made the 40-mile train journey to Trichy. Waking up each morning well before dawn, Narasimhan would bathe and get ready. He had to walk to the Thanjavur railway station to catch the Boat Mail.

It was always dark outside when he closed the front door and set out of the house. In those early mornings, the streets of Thanjavur had dozens of stray dogs. Angry at having been disturbed, the dogs barked ferociously and came yelping after Narasimhan. He was a thin lad of fifteen at the time and was extremely fearful of getting bitten in the legs by a street dog. And so, Narasimhan’s maternal grandfather agreed to also wake up daily and to walk with him. Waving a long stick to ward off the howling street dogs, the grandfather accompanied Narasimhan to the railway station before turning right back. For the rest of his life, Narasimhan never forgot this daily act of kindness by his grandfather.

The Boat Mail took an hour and a half to travel from Thanjavur to Trichy. Narasimhan noticed that there were a handful of other boys making the same daily commute from Thanjavur to St. Joseph’s. In school, this group was often referred to as the “Thanjavur boys.”

The school started exactly fifteen minutes after the scheduled arrival time of the Boat Mail in Trichy. If they wanted to get to their class in time, the Thanjavur boys all had to jog together as a group until they reached the arch at the entrance to the college. On days when the train was even a few minutes late, the classes would have commenced. St. Joseph’s took the issue of attendance very seriously. The school had a rule that no student could enter a class late without meeting the principal. If they were late, all the Thanjavur boys had to first line up by the principal’s office to get a “late chit.” Only with this chit would they be let into class.

The Lanka Boat Mail was predictably late one or two times a week, and so all these boys became very familiar to the principal. Father Ehrhart was the college principal. He was dressed in a Jesuit cassock, a white robe worn over his clothes. He had been in St. Joseph’s for decades and was proud of its many achievements. The Father took delight in the fact that studious boys of all faiths, from towns even 50 kilometers away, chose to come to his Jesuit college for their education. He enjoyed his chance to interact with the Thanjavur boys.

After the first few times of being late, the other Thanjavur boys felt that Narasimhan was the principal’s favorite. And so, he was often pushed to the front of the ragtag group of teen boys to request the late-chits for all of them, with the other boys trying to stay inconspicuous behind him.
“You again?”, Father Ehrhart would begin his standard shtick. “Boys, was the train late again?” he’d ask with mock exasperation.
“Yes, Father,” Narasimhan would say. The boys just wanted to get to class, but the principal was in no hurry whatsoever. He pointed to Narasimhan.
“You! Did you try and help? Did you get down and push the train?”
Narasimhan would play along. “I tried my best, Father. But the train was still late.”
“You can push the train only if you eat well,” the principal would say, smiling. “You should come and eat with me.”
“I will do that, Father.”
The principal knew that Narasimhan and most of the other Thanjavur boys hailed from families that were strictly vegetarian. The fact that they only ate rice and vegetables amused him. “Yes. Look at how weak you are! I am going to feed you prawn curry and some good chicken so that you can grow strong and push the train!”
“Father, we are already late.” Narasimhan would remind him gently.
“Oh yes, yes. I forgot!” And he’d hand all the Thanjavur boys their late chits and they would all run to their respective classes. Variations of this scene played out on multiple occasions because the principal never ever got tired of it.

Since Narasimhan was often several minutes late walking into the first class, many of the teachers got to know him. The Tamil teacher liked the studious Narasimhan. The teacher dubbed him “Thanjavur Thambi”, the brother hailing from Thanjavur. This teacher was a masterful teacher of the subject and his love of the Tamil language had also infected Narasimhan, who looked forward to the classes.

During school recess, Narasimhan would eat the container of curd-rice with narthangai, a citrus pickle, that his mother had packed for him the previous night. At the end of the day, after classes, he’d walk back to the railway station to catch another train back to Thanjavur. The walk back was a lot more leisurely because there was plenty of time between when the school ended and the return train showed up in Trichy station.

One small tiffin-box of curd rice eaten around noon was all that Narasimhan ate from the time he left his home before 5 am until he got back home late in the evenings. Narasimhan’s mother knew that the food was not adequate for a boy of fifteen. Once or twice a week, if she could spare the money, she would give the boy three annas (18 paise), instructing him to eat something before he boarded the return train.

Narasimhan knew exactly what to do with the three annas. On his way back from the school to the Trichy railway station, very close to the city’s famous Rock Fort, he passed a restaurant called the Mayavaram Lodge. His Trichy classmates were always praising the restaurant. The masala dosa there, accompanied by small cups of sambar and coconut chutney, cost exactly three annas and tasted wonderful. After just a few visits, the Mayavaram Lodge masala dosa became the gold standard for him. Though Narasimhan would eat hundreds of dosas in his life, nothing ever matched his memory of the divine taste of that restaurant’s masala dosa eaten in ravenous hunger on late afternoons when he had three annas in his pocket and felt rich.

On other days when he did not have the money even passing by the restaurant was sheer torture. The aroma of deep fried afternoon snacks tormented the hungry boy even if he crossed over to the other side of the road. Narasimhan quickly learned the strategy adopted by hungry people the world over – the trick was to not even think about any food. On such days he would opt for a different route, one that avoided Mayavaram Lodge, even though the detour actually meant a longer walk.

Narasimhan knew well what each anna meant for the struggling family. In spite of his love for the masala dosa, if he felt that he could control his hunger, he would go to the restaurant counter, and order just a plain dosa instead of a masala dosa. This only cost two annas, thereby saving one precious anna which he would hand back to his mother that evening.

Immediately after reaching home one evening, in his second and final year of his daily commute, Narasimhan remembered his Tamil textbook. Earlier that afternoon, a passenger on the return train journey had been looking for something to read. And he asked Narasimhan for his Tamil textbook, who had obligingly handed over the book. Back at home, the textbook was not to be found no matter how many times Narasimhan searched his school bag. He knew why. When the train reached Thanjavur station, he had gotten down and walked home, completely forgetting about the textbook he had lent.

Narasimhan was petrified. Asking his mother or father for money to buy a replacement textbook in the middle of the school year was unthinkable. And so, he did what most boys his age would do. He decided not to tell anyone about the lost textbook.

The very next day he borrowed his classmate’s Tamil textbook and brought it home. And for the next few days in every spare minute that he could find, he set about frantically transcribing the entire book. He copied verbatim, page after page, from the text into several ruled notebooks. Narasimhan was naturally quite good at Tamil and he found that he actually enjoyed this task. He had started at the very beginning. He also copied the future chapters that the teacher had not yet covered in his class lectures.

This Tamil teacher at St. Joseph’s had a technique to make sure the boys paid attention. He would pick students at random, ask them to read aloud sections from the book, and then make them answer his questions. Narasimhan loved the Tamil lectures and thought very highly of his teacher. This was the man who had fondly dubbed him “Thanjavur Thambi.” The teacher liked challenging Narasimhan, to see if he had learned his subject. After a few students struggled with his questions, he would turn to Narasimhan and ask. Narasimhan loved these challenges, and he didn’t ever want to look bad in front of this teacher. In fact, he didn’t want his teacher to even realize that he no longer owned a textbook. And so, Narasimhan decided to memorize the entire textbook from start to end. After a few days, he could quote many sections of the book from memory.

As it turned out, losing that textbook turned out to be a real blessing. As a consequence of transcribing the entire textbook by hand, and memorizing large portions of it, Narasimhan started to get a deeper appreciation of the subject. He noticed patterns and how the themes in different chapters were all interconnected. The whole text became very clear to him in a way he had not appreciated before. At the end of the school year, Narasimhan had to appear for the statewide public board exam. He found the Tamil final exam paper to be easy, and felt that he had done really well. When the results were declared, Narasimhan had scored the highest marks in the entire state of Tamil Nadu.

His college principal, Father Ehrhart, who gave him all those late-chits, was especially delighted. He informed Narasimhan that he had won a grand prize for having come “State First” and was asked to go to a specific office building in Trichy to collect his prize. When Narasimhan showed up at that place, they pointed to an immense pile of books. He had won 37 books! Four tall stacks of large volumes of Tamil literature were on the floor, blocking a good part of the room. He was told that he had to take the books home right away. He hadn’t come prepared. The only way to transport the books was to hire an auto-rickshaw.

Decades later, Narasimhan would still recall how uneasy he had been on that autorickshaw ride, bringing home all his newly-won books. Uneasy because he had hired an auto knowing fully well that he didn’t have the money to pay the driver for the auto fare. During his entire ride back, he was praying for a neighboring uncle to be home when he reached. When the auto reached home, Narasimhan told the driver to wait and raced to find the uncle to borrow money and paid his auto fare. Even winning a grand prize had added to the family’s expense.

That summer, Narasimhan’s father was transferred again, from Thanjavur to Pollachi. The family would be moving again. However, since Narasimhan had just finished High School, he wasn’t going with them. He was headed to Madras for college. He had one more thing he wanted to do. During that year’s summer break, he made one final train trip to Trichy back to his college. Narasimhan wanted to find his Tamil teacher and to thank him in person. When he found the man, it was the master who was grateful. St. Joseph’s college Trichy had a long tradition of outstanding scholastics, and there had been many “state firsts” from the school. But apparently, no student in that English-medium college had ever stood state-first in the subject of Tamil. Narasimhan was the first student to have earned that distinction for St. Joseph’s.

His Tamil teacher was thrilled. The protégé has done his master proud. The teacher placed both his hands on Narasimhan’s shoulders and spontaneously came up with a line of rhyming verse: “Thanjavur Thambi, nee thanga kambi!” Thanjavur brother, you are a bar of gold!”

Ramprasad Narasimhan
20th May 2021