Romance of Train journey.

NOT COMPLETE.

STILL TO BE EDITED .

My father was teacher in Government High School at Neemuch and later at Mandleshwar. Some of my earliest memories are of those places . Neemuch is a Cantonment town located near the border of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and has meter gauge railway . Besides being cantonment, it's other claim to fame was presence of a Government Opium factory under Government control and licence due to its location in poppy growing area . Mandleshwar is on the banks of Narmada River . Generally no one knows where it is . For them it must be told that it is 5 KMs from Maheshwar , the place made famous by Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar , queen of Indore state .It had no railway.
My ajol ( Grand parents place , in this case from mother's side ) was in Sangli .When we were young , Our mother used to visit Sangli once a year during summer holidays .The journey was a major event and preparations started months in advance they consisted mainly writing letters to all the relatives en-route. Informing every one of our journey dates. Adn preparing dry eatables which wont spoil in 4 - 5 days . Even the parathas were made of atta kneaded in milk instead of water for its quality of not going bad for 4-5 days .Beddings were made of mattresses rolled in durries and tied secularly with ropes . Later they were replaced by "holdalls".For me the journey to Sangli was the most wonderful thing ever to happen .
For Sangli we had first to go to Bombay , then to Poona then to Miraj and then Change over to narrow gauge rail for sangli . From Neemuch as well as from Mandleshwar first we had to reach either Khandwa or Ratlam, major rail junctions on the broad gauge main line to catch train for Bombay.