Imagine a winter바카라™s afternoon; a window seat in a tram trundling along the grassy banks of the MaiÂdan, the hazy expanse of the race course on the left, flecks of the Victoria MemoÂrial바카라™s white marble flit through trees on the right; a sunlit Red Road lies ahead바카라¦the gentle lurches at the stops, the shaÂrply sonorous bells바카라¦immortal Calcutta.
The British-owned Calcutta Tramways Corporation (CTC) was taken over by the United Front government as an 바카라˜anti-Âimperialist바카라™ gesture in 1967; it was nationalised later. Trams as an inherent part of the city바카라™s public transport steadily declined since바카라”it바카라™s on its last gasps now. With limited road space, trams are viewed as a hindrance to the growing traffic. Once valued for its pollution-free, pleasant rides, trams are seen as slow-Âmoving, easy-going, lumbering reptiles.
Keeping with this, the government started stripping its assets (mostly huge tracts of land for depots). There are 15 careworn trams in the Park Circus and Gariahat depots (there were 112 in 1985). Other, cavernous depots languish likewise. For generations, trams used to ply through the nights on festival days; now, they are taken off the roads.
In its heyday, tram workers were mostly brought from UP and Bihar, trained for six months and appointed as drivers and maintenance workers. Some of the conductors were local lads. MohaÂmÂÂmed Sayeed is one of the few remÂainÂing tram drivers still operating on the remÂÂaining routes. Like his colleagues, he is to retire soon and have been assured of timely settlement of retirement benefits. But their weather-Âbeaten visages presage a grim futÂure for their beloved trams. In Sayeed바카라™s youth, trams were one of the symbols of Calcutta바카라™s unique splendour. CTC, now under WBTC, stopped recruitment for years and run buses to make up for losses. Battered and discoloured, the trams are a neglected lot.
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By Rajat Roy in Calcutta
