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The Train Coach at Mahebourg, Mauritius

So here it stands, unmoving, unmovable, aged,

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Rusting, decaying, ramshackle, decrepit, forlorn,

Uncoupled, abandoned then salvaged…pathetic.

This sad-looking coach is what’s left from an erstwhile

Ranjit Jhuboo

 

Splendid and fully operational train service

That ran along rails most of which have long since

Been removed and replaced with roads.

Heartbreaking ‘tis for me to see this coach,

 

A relic from the past, from a golden age of locomotion;

From my past in the fifties and sixties when as a child

I watched it chug along through my village of Cassis,

Then an all too familiar sight and sound. But little

 

Did we know then that its days were numbered.

Now, like old King Hamlet’s ghost, it’s there to remind

Us of a wrongful deed that needs to be put right.

Put right? This just seems to be wishful thinking.

 

To restore main line services sadly appears to be stuff

Of fairy tales: The fairy waves her magic wand

And, hey presto, the original coach reappears, not

Perhaps to joyfully take us all to the midnight ball,

 

But to relieve the awful lung-busting traffic

Congestion that’s slowly suffocating our roads.

Wishful thinking indeed, but sadly this is all we have.

Many roads have replaced the rails, just as

 

Herbage now occupies broad swathes of rain forests;

Both acts being a curse to human health.

Now lots of scratching of heads and wondering what to do.

Yes, it’s true those trains would have been replaced;

 

Innovations, developmental progression,

They all are part and parcel of modernization.

To Mauritius, this coach, like the Dodo, is extinct,

Consigned to a museum as a historical artefact

 

To reminisce on or as a zoo item for gawking at.

Sadly, foresight in the safeguard of this valuable,

Essential national asset in the interest of future

Generations appeared to have been deficient.

 

Still, this coach is what we have; so let’s treasure it.

My grandmother was old, wizened but adorable

And I loved her and miss her, just as I miss this coach.

Will its likes reappear some day? We’ll wait and see.

 

If for mammoths, that vanished along with a lost world,

To make a comeback hope exists through work

On its DNA, then surely for locomotion too that almost

Everywhere else on earth abounds this should be the case.

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