An Enchanting Tale Of Our Tour Of South India-Part 2 Of 20

OUR SOUTH INDIA TOUR IN 1975 ( Episode 2 of 20)

Before delving into the anecdotes that I had briefly mentioned in Part 1 of this tale, let me share with the readers three fun facts that were an inseparable part of our tours. This will be especially a novelty for Gen Z kids.

Fun fact #1 :

Information gathering and planning the trip:

Google and other search engines were yet to come. Forget smart phones, even basic mobile phones were more than two decades away from reality. It would seem we were living in the Dark Ages.

One would think, given the above limitations, nobody would dare to plan a trip to an unknown place. Usually, trips were planned to a place where one had a relative or friend residing there. In the above context, planning and undertaking a trip to 32 places like our 1975 tour would seem next to impossible.

But it was not that we had no way to gather information. There were many channels that provided ample information about various tourist places.

Tourism Offices:

There was an ITDC (India Tourism Development Corporation) office near my father’s office. He used to visit there often to collect information on various places of the country. They used to supply material rich in information viz., maps showing railway and road connectivity, short notes on important tourist places, photographs, ITDC hotels availability, booking procedures, postal address, telephone numbers, etc. And imagine, all the above materials were supplied free of cost.

Further, many states like J&K, Himachal Pradesh, MP, Rajasthan, etc., have their tourism offices in Calcutta. My father used to visit those too, to gather information. For states, that did not have any offices in Calcutta, he used to write to them directly, seeking the information he needed. He used to enclose a self-addressed sufficiently stamped envelope to ensure that they sent the information promptly and without fail.

Other Channels:

He also used to collect travelogues and other articles of tourist interest, from newspapers and other magazines like The Illustrated Weekly of India. He kept them sorted, state-wise, in a folder (physical, not the computer one).

In the later part of 1980s, we had another source of information in the form of the Bengali monthly travel magazine, ‘Bhraman’, which started publication in the year 1983. It is the most read travel magazine in India; Bhraman has an average issue readership of 6,30,000(Indian Readership Survey 2019). It provides a wealth of information viz., brief note on popular sightseeing spots, opening and closing times of museums, temples etc., entry fees, modes of transport available with approximate charges, details of restaurants with note on varieties of food available, rates, quality etc., names of hotels (both high end and budget) with contact details and a brief note on the quality of infrastructure and service.

But the magazine is published in the Bengali Language. My father was not very fluent in reading Bengali. He self-taught himself by procuring a list of alphabets from a friend, practiced reading signboards first and then graduated to reading headlines in Bengali dailies. Still, it used to take a lot of effort for him to read even a single paragraph. But he was not a man to give up easily. He used to burn the midnight oil and jot down important details relating to our trip from the magazine.

The Bradshaw:

Once my father felt that he had gathered sufficient information for undertaking a trip, he would sit down to draw up a plan. He would first select the state for the intended visit. He would study all the available materials on the popular tourist spots in that state.

Then, he would take out the state map and mark all the above tourist spots. He will make sure to verify that they are well connected by railway routes. In some places, travel by road was unavoidable. But those places were quite negligible in number. Indian Railways, even in those days, could boast of very good connectivity.

Once he finished the plotting on the map, he would take out the Bradshaw.

The All India Bradshaw is nothing but a railway timetable. But it contained so much information that would make present-day search engines redundant.

It contained tables showing all the railway stations in India (major and minor, with distances in kilometres from the originating station). If the name of a certain place was not on the Bradshaw, one can be one hundred percent sure that the place did not have rail connectivity. It also contained detailed timing of arrival and departure of all the trains (express trains, mail trains, fast passenger trains, and also the slow passenger trains that used to halt at all stations). The indexing (station-wise) was so good that searching was very easy. It also had details of retiring rooms and waiting rooms at stations. The book was the Encyclopedia Britannica as far as train information was concerned.

Thus, with the help of the Bradshaw, my father would make a detailed itinerary of our proposed journey.

In the next episode, I will share with you Fun Fact #2.