Halt Station India: The Dramatic Tale of the Nation's First Rail Lines - Softcover

B. Aklekar, Rajendra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8129134977 ISBN 13: 9788129134974

Verlag: Rupa Publications Private Limited, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Halt Station India chronicles the dramatic rise of India's original rail network, the arrival of the first train, and the subsequent emergence of a pioneering electric line-all in the port city of Bombay. Trains that once provoked awe and fear-they were viewed as fire chariots, smoke-spewing demons-have today become a nation's lifeblood. Taking a walk along India's first rail lines, the author stumbles upon fragments of the past-a clock at Victoria Terminus that offers a rare view of a city; a cannon near Masjid Bunder Station that is worshipped as a god; a watchtower overlooking Sion Station, believed to have housed a witch. Each pit-stop comes with stories of desire and war, ambition and death-by Dockyard Road Station, for instance, author Laurence Sterne's beloved, Eliza Draper, followed a sailor into the sea; or close to Parel Station, the wife of India's governor general, Lord Canning found a garden rich in tropical vegetation; this, she replicated at Barrackpore. Drawing from journals, biographies, newspapers and railway archives-and with nostalgic, first-time accounts of those who travelled by India's earliest trains-the book captures the economic and social revolutions spurred by the country's first train line. In this, Halt Station India is not just about the railways-it is the story of the growth of India's business capital and a rare study of a nation.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A journalist for the past twenty years, Rajendra B. Aklekar has two things on his mind―the railways and Bombay. He started his career with Rusi Karanjia’s firebrand The Daily, where he used to run a weekly column on the history of Bombay’s railway stations.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rupa Publications Private Limited
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 8129134977
• ISBN 13: 9788129134974
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 232
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar