Nurturing the Bitter past in C.G. Pai’s “Playing at Trains” : Prof. AJ Sebastian sdb
Malayalam playwright C.G. Pai in his “Playing at Trains” delves into a young man’s struggle to establish his identity due to his confrontation with his Gandhian father. Being rejected by his father for his independent thinking and attitude, the young Subbu seeks employment opportunity in the Middle-east, to stand on his own feet. The play is also a r eflection of life in the Middle-east coupled with nostalgia for home despite the protagonist nurturing bitter past.
It may be noted that there is a huge population of Indians in the Middle East, that moved to the Gulf after the oil boom to work as labourers and for clerical jobs. However, a significant minority are either employed in the highest echelons of major banks and corporations or have prospered greatly through conducting business in the region. One of the major reasons Indians still like to work in the Gulf is because of the tax-free income it provides and its proximity to India (“Indians in Middle-east.” http://www.indianaction.org).
According to unofficial estimates, nearly 20 lakh people from Kerala are currently working in the Middle-east. The remittances of the expatriate population to Kerala works out at around Rs. 2,000 crore per year. (“Middle-easts.”http://www.financialexpress.com).
The opening scene at a railway platform introduce a group of friends in their thirties, huddled up in a corner, awaiting the arrival of their train. They have returned from the Middle-east and are on their way home to their native places in Kerala. Subbu who had dozed off is suddenly woken up with the announcement of the arrival of a train. He speaks to his companions, Ravi, Tom and Mohan, wondering if he missed his train while he dozed off. The conversation reveals that Subbu is on his way home, at the insistence of his friends, having been estranged from his family for ten years.
Subbu: …Should I have come back at all…?
Ravi: …What is there? It’s been…ten years!
Tom: And how long, do you think he’ll live, yaar?
Subbu: Him!
Ravi: He’s your father, after all.
Subbu: Father! He disowned me, Ravi.
Ravi: This bitterness is no good, Subbu. You should go and make peace with them… (Pai 112).
Subbu is worried at the same time about jeopardising his career, by his home visit, at a time when he is eligible for promotion in his company.
The scene shifts to a noisy street where the same friends meet after Subbu’s home visit. Everyone is eager to know of what happened at home. Subbu experienced his father’s usual strange behaviour while his mother kept crying. They discuss their future career. The scene shifts to the friends reading their letters from home. They are all in their work place somewhere in the middle-east. Subbu doesn’t want to read the letter from his sister, though the rest tell him to read as it is not from his father. Tom teases him telling him that the letter may be one of requests to him to buy different fashionable articles for the girl. Subbu gets annoyed and has no mind to do any shopping for his family. The discussion reveals things concerning the dark times his family experienced. Subbu reveals how his family was impoverished by his father who lived a Gandhian life, helping everyone around. He fought in the freedom struggle and lived a simple life. All he got was a freedom fighter’s pension, while his students became important personalities in public life. Due to continuous conflict between Subbu and his father, he was disowned. His father disowned him when he refused his Gandhian ways, going in search of an income generating job. He was told: “If you so much as step out of this house now, consider you’re dead as far as I am concerned. From this day on, I have no male progeny who will do my last rites when I’m gone and help me wade across the river of pus and blood and excrement on to the shores of the nether world” (116). When his mother wept and wailed at the turn of events, his father kept to his strong stand that though it hurts cancerous growth has to be removed. Thus, driven out of home, his sister Aroo, with her earning maintained the family. Since, Subbu, has a job and earns much, his sister keeps writing to him asking for financial assistance.
The scene shifts to the friends in their shared bedroom, where Arabian music could be heard. Subbu is unable to sleep. Ravi tells him, thoughts of home, perhaps keeps him under tension. But, Subbu is in no mood to accept his version of the story and lets out his venom:
Ravi: So. Do you send home any money?
Subbu: Me? They threw me out of the house.
Ravi: Not ‘they’. Don’t include all of them. It was your father. Not your mother or your sisters.
Subbu: Cowards, all of them. No one came to my defence. They’re afraid father would throw them out too (118).
Ravi reminds him not to forget that they are in a foreign land only to make as much money as possible to help their families and the country to progress economically. Ravi had done his part by sending sufficient money home to enable his sister to get a teaching job. He tells Subbu not to forget that they are in a foreign land to earn money quickly and get away. He cautions him not to antagonize any one as they are at the mercy of their employers. As a haunting dream music plays on, there is the echoing of the following lines spoken out in the background, presenting Subbu’s frame of mind.
Professor: What do you sell my lord?
Subbu: Shoes, shoes, shoes…
Professor: And what is the matter there of?
Subbu: Between who?
Professor: I mean the matter of what you sell.
Subbu: What else but money, money, money? (119).
It is a kind of hallucination on his plan of life to make money to assert himself as an individual, having been turned out of his home.
The sequence moves to an outing the three friends have as they visit the Water Park and go shopping. They talk about their employers paying them well, but they have absolutely no time to spend the money. They go about purchasing things sold at discount sales. Ravi spends a lot of money buying different things to take home during his next home visit. But, Subbu shows indifference when asked to buy for his family. He is very ironic when he refers to them as people who squeeze out of him money in different ways.
Subbu: People who want to get something out of you always keep ‘in touch’. That’s the way of the world
Ravi: But they never asked for anything, Subbu.
Subbu: Can’t you see? Aroo has her own interest at the back of her mind when she writes those letters. After all, having a brother who’s earning abroad is no small thing. It hikes your marriage market (120).
The conversation leads him to reflect on his life after making all the money. He feels that no one can get out of the prison of life. Subbu lets his thoughts wander over his childhood when he used to be fascinated by trains. There was a shunting yard close to his home where he could observe trains moving back and forward through out the day. He recollects: “How I used to adore trains then! And during the school holidays, under the scorching summer sun I used to play at trains” (122). The scene shifts to boys and girls playing at trains. They shout aloud giving particulars of trains – Super Express, Express with electric and diesel engines. A little girl is made to play passenger train, that is the slowest. The children further play the roles of station master, signalman and ticket issuer. They draw lines to indicate tracks and keep playing the arrival of different trains. As years went by, he couldn’t continue playing at trains as he had grown big. Eventually, he passed his higher secondary schooling. He had to think of his future. The thoughts of playing at trains at childhood draws his attention to the present scenario – “And what are trains today? Air-conditioned. Superfast. Electrified. They breeze away all the time into a grey future. Taking you away. From your childhood, your home, your roots” (123).
Tom wakes Subbu from his reverie, reminding him how he has suddenly taken interest in reading letters from home. When his friends keep asking him curiously, Subbu tells them it is the letter of his sister Aroo expressing her concern with a dose of advise given on behalf of her parents. The letter has maternal concerns from his mother. Advice is given to take care of his health as malaria is raging at home: “…So be careful about the type of water you drink. Drink a glass of pure cow’s milk every night. Buffalo’s milk is no good….Don’t forget to apply coconut oil to your hair everyday…” “ (124). Subbu tells them that he keeps getting letters from home, and he reads them to while away time. He enquires from Ravi how he sends money home. He decides to send some money home as mother might be facing financial difficulty. Subbu goes on to narrate how a recent letter from Aroo desperately expressed her desire to contact him over phone. But he had never given them his contact numbers. She, desperately, wanted to inform him of his father’s fast declining health. His reaction is one of ironic indifference: “You’ve to die ever so slowly giving them ample time to locate me at the ends of the earth? So I could come rushing back to your death-bed to give you the satisfaction of pardoning my ‘sins’…and to carry out afterwards, all the rituals prescribed for the dutiful son?” (125).
The sequence moves to the railway station where Subbu has arrived with Ravi, Tom and Mohan, after a long flight of twenty-four hours. Exhausted, he gets into an AC coach with tinted glass and curtains. He recalls to mind a childhood train journey he made when the ride was much more bumpy and shabby with vendors all around. He came out of the cabin into the passage outside to breath a bit of fresh air. Observing the scene outside, he notes how the surrounding has been transformed with housing plots replacing paddy fields and huts replaced by concrete structures.
Back in the cabin, Ravi, talks of the economic prosperity of the country with 8-9% annual growth, making India get her developed nation status. Subbu points out the ever growing corruption and inflation. According to him, the only thing that has not changed is the shit on the railway line, turning them into public toilet. Suddenly, he realises that such filthy thoughts would only make him sick, doing no good.
Subbu nurtures his thoughts of his father who used to tell him in childhood: “A family’s is like a chariot, Subbu. After my time, you have to steer this chariot” (127). But he never bothered about his father’s advise and ran away from his responsibility. Ravi opines that it is the expectation every parent has of a son. Making money away in the middle-east is the way they can steer the family chariot. The money helped the families, compensating for the money they spent on educating them. Subbu retorts saying that the education they received is merely one to generate cheap labour. Tom is of the opinion that time has come for the employers to come searching for them in the labour market.
Subbu, begins to be emotional, thinking of his sweet heart Gloria who had undergone face-lift surgery. He wonders if they would recognize each other: “Will I recognise her when I meet her next? Will she recognise me? Or, will she want to recognise me? They’ll surely move her elsewhere after the surgery. After all that they do for her, they can’t continue to have her as a cleaning woman…” (128). The scene shifts to their work place where Gloria hangs around the corner of Subbu, having a soft corner for him. The boys tell him not to indulge in any affairs, but to do his duty at the stall. They keep teasing him that it is time to inform his folks at home about the secret affair with the Chinese looking cleaning woman. His friends let him go and engage in a chat with Gloria while they mind the stall. As the duo converse, Gloria tells him about the facelift surgery she has been asked to do, to get her a better chance to get ahead in life. She recounts how in college, she was the college beauty. Now, they have chosen her among hundreds of applicants to go for a face-lift surgery. She had arranged for a loan to pay the expensive surgery, being rarely privileged to be selected among so many. She was least worried about the loan when Subbu frowned at the great financial risk. But she brushed his sentiments aside saying: “What is wrong with you? You aren’t jealous of this one recognition I get, are you?” (131). They part company in that unfortunate manner.
In the sequence that moves back to the friends, Subbu narrated his woes. He feels that he shouldn’t have left his home at all. Instead, he should have listened to his father’s advice. Tom tells him not to dig out the past, instead move out of the bitter memories of the past. He recall his wonderful time at home in the festival season during harvest time.
Subbu’s thoughts moves to his home where he has arrived. There is great surprise and expectation at the arrival of the prodigal son. But the scene is one of anxiety as his father lies motionless in his last stages. Everyone sits around as he struggles to linger on with life. His mother is engrossed in muttering prayers for her dying spouse. The doctor comes twice a day to check on him. Mother looks at Subbu with great concern and cries out, “Aroo, Vidya… Subbu… Oh, what’s going to happen now?” (132). Aroo hands over father’s letter to Subbu. Perusing through it he could read father’s loan accounts and the debts he has accumulated over the years. His father had entrusted everything to Subbu saying “Repay my debts, look after the house, don’t forsake the family temple…The family deity has been our life-breath, Subbu. For generations, rain or shine, we have offered pooja every single day. Let me not be the one to break this tradition” (133). Subbu interprets his father’s letter as one with selfish motive to throw responsibility on to him, so that he could die in peace. Aroo has moved away from the responsibility by passing the letter to him. The father had also written at the end of the letter that it was his will and testament which is to be carried out verbatim by his kith and kin. He also claims that he had lived his life sincerely, having hurt none. He claims that he never imposed himself on anyone. If he ever failed in anything it was unintentional. Ironically, Subbu calls the will defining a payback time for everyone to share his father’s concerns with compound interest. He is sarcastic when he calls his father a good scriptwriter for Bollywood.
The father had done what he could by settling his two daughters and Subbu would stand on his feet with his job in the Middle-east. Their mother has sufficient money left by the father. He had set up a village committee to look after the temple after he is gone. He had also made it his will that his mortal remains are to be given to the Anatomy Museum at the medical college in the city. He wished to do some good that way to society. Subbu regrets, his father had planned everything for the family. He had nothing to do as a son. His mother faced the loss bravely. She nowlives depending on her two daughters, looking after their children. Subbu is glad that things have turned out to b so, so that mother wouldn’t pester him to get married. Meanwhile, war had broken out in the Middle-east. His friends had managed to escape. They are confident that when war would be over, there would be fresh opportunities for them. They encourage Subbu to renew his passport, so that he could make the trip back after war. But, he has decided not to return. He would rather stay back in the village and spend time at the railway shunting yard, playing at trains, bringing back childhood memories.
The conflict that Subbu faces is due to his non-compromising attitude to his father’s Gandhian way of life. The young man wants to make fast buck like his peers who have gone to the Middle-east, seeking a better career. But, the father is unable to let him go as he is the only son to continue the tradition of his household – offering daily pooja to the deities besides looking after his household. The boy is in no mood to succumb to such old fashioned ways, being caught up in the rat race for better and progressive life. For resolution of the conflict, the father needs to accept new modes of thinking in a globalized world, which offers immense opportunities for young people like Subbu. If he is a genuine Gandhian, he would let progressive thinking in his family too. A true Gandhian is a person who liberates man from social, political and economic slavery. Such a true spirit of the Mahatma is certainly lacking in the old man who becomes, instead, a tyrant, than a peace-maker. Subbu, on his part, being an educated youth, should have sunk his bitter past to liberate his family from poverty. But, he nurtures his bitterness and lives an unforgiving life. However, his final decision to return to his village to play at trains is indicative of a reformed life, returning to his roots in the family, with its traditions after his father’s death.
The story line is replete with superimposing of the past and the present employing stream of consciousness to bring out powerfully the mental tension in the protagonist as he grapples with his adjustment problems at home and at his work place in the Middle-east. However, the playwright has been very weak in the analysis of the central theme built around playing at trains.
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Works Cited
“Indians in Middle-east.”http://www.indianaction.org/index.php/weindians/middle-east
“Middle-easts.”http://www.financialexpress.com/news/middle-easts-demographic-gift-may-dash-keralites-gulf-job-dreams/93390/
Pai, C.G. “Playing at Trains.” Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi’s Bi-Monthly
Journal, No.230, Nov. – Dec. 2005.