{"id":34936,"date":"2014-11-14T03:33:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T08:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=34936"},"modified":"2014-11-14T04:36:46","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T09:36:46","slug":"princess-yarl-devi-rules-the-hearts-of-her-people-once-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=34936","title":{"rendered":"Princess “Yarl Devi” Rules the Hearts of her People Once Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Text and Pictures by Thulasi Muttulingam<\/strong><\/p>\n

To many people the world over, the ‘people’s princess’ might be an accolade reserved for Diana; for the people of Jaffna however, it is the Yarl Devi. They have waited a long time now for her home-coming – a long anticipated reunion realized only recently with the opening of the Jaffna station by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n

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Depending on whom you ask, her arrival heralds different memories for different people; for some, it’s memories of being excited children taking family trips to Colombo with their parents; for others, memories of the convenient and efficient transport system they utilized as civil servants returning home on week-ends; for yet others, the joy of serving her and her passengers faithfully as station masters…
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\n“Two days before the official opening, I went up to see the station I had last worked in, up to 1990,” says S. Alfred (70), one of the last station masters working in Jaffna until it closed. “It was a hive of activity with people working all over the place to get the station ready, before the president’s visit. I just wandered about, a lonely soul, lost in my own memories. I had waited so long for this day.”<\/p>\n

A coronary bypass surgery a few years ago had made him aware of his own mortality; having seen his children settled in life however, he had only one last remaining wish he said. To travel up to Kankesanthurai on his beloved Yarl Devi once more.<\/p>\n

“My association with her goes back a long time; from the time I was a school-boy plunking myself by a window-seat to save it for my uncle, a civil-servant who traveled it regularly – to the time I became an employee of the Railway Department in 1964 – until my retirement in 1990, when the line closed down. I had worked in different stations during my tenure as a station master but to me, Jaffna was the most beautiful station in the whole of Sri Lanka. It broke my heart to see it as a cold shell of itself during the war years.”<\/p>\n

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Mighty leap<\/strong><\/p>\n

That broken heart has now received some measure of remediation. Like a phoenix rising from its ashes, the once beautiful station that saw so much devastation, shelling and bombing, has now been rejuvenated. For many years a haunting spectre of war, it has been restored to its former glory, and is again a hub of industry and commerce.<\/p>\n

The transport industry has just taken a mighty leap in Jaffna. Night-buses plying the barren A-9 road bereft of scenic beauty is no longer the only option for travelers. So popular has been the demand since its opening, that trains running to and from Jaffna have been booked 45 days ahead.<\/p>\n

Apparently the collection within 14 days of the Jaffna station being opened passed Rs. 14 million. While with buses, people prefer to book an over-night journey – many are opting to travel the Yarl Devi by day so as not to miss out on the scenery.<\/p>\n

“I prefer the train to the bus for several reasons, but one of the most important is the scenic route that the train takes,” says Chandran (62), a retired teacher in Jaffna.<\/p>\n

The 398 km route constantly passes through lush greenery – though the landscape changes significantly over the Western, North-central and Northern provinces that the train passes through. Moving out of Colombo, one sees mostly coconut or banana groves, interspersed with the bright green of the paddy fields and dark green of jungle shrubs. The only palm to be seen for miles would be the Coconut. When Anuradhapura is reached though, for the first time a palm of a different kind would occasionally crop up; the Palmyrah. Form hereon in, the Plamyrah would become increasingly more ubiquitous. One realizes one has reached the Northern Province proper, when the Palmyrahs start rivaling the coconuts and then out-numbering them.<\/p>\n

Green paddy fields<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Our hearts used to sing once we passed Navatkuli station and saw the bright green paddy fields on either side,” says Alfred, the retired station master. “That was when we got the feeling we were almost home – that Jaffna was only a few kilometers away.”<\/p>\n

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No wonder that the iron maiden which carried them home, earned their everlasting gratitude. The Yarl Devi (Princess of Jaffna) had a sister-train called the Uttara Devi. While one plied from Colombo to Jaffna, the other plied from Jaffna to Colombo. Why therefore was it only the Yarl Devi which was so nostalgically yearned for? A few questions to the Jaffna populace turned up some interesting answers.<\/p>\n

“Because the Yarl Devi was ‘our’ princess” was one response. “Because while the Yarl Devi brought us to Jaffna, the Uttara Devi took us away from it” was another.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt though that it was the name of the Yarl Devi, that captured popular imagination and thus secured her a place in the hearts and minds of the people. How it transpired that certain trains came to be named such endearing names in the 1950s is rather a mystery, but it was certainly a stroke of genius – usually credited to B.D Rampala, the legendary General Manager of the then Ceylon Government Railway. Whether they be the Yarl Devi, the Udarata Menike, Ruhunu Kumari or the Samudra Devi, these trains acquired a personality of their own, which has endeared them to the people they serve.<\/p>\n

Indeed even if the Uttara Devi was an eclipsed younger sister, she too is missed. There were rumblings in the Tamil Media recently over the Uttara Devi’s being forgotten and how she was a valued train too.<\/p>\n

For reasons best known to themselves, Sri Lankan Railways have two Yarl Devis operational now instead of the old System of a Yarl Devi and an Uttara Devi. So currently, while one Yarl Devi plies Colombo to Jaffna, the other traverses the reverse parallel route – the one traveled by Uttara Devi before. Since Uttara Devi was not a name as massively popular, the Department seems to have dropped her.<\/p>\n

Another change is that it is the ‘inter-city’ which is the fastest train on this route now. The Yarl Devi was introduced in 1956 as an express train, which cut the traveling time by more than half. Where previous journeys had taken 13 hours, 1956 marked a change in transport history by shortening that journey to just six hours. Currently however, the Yarl Devis are much slower trains that take about nine hours to travel as they stop at a number of stations en route. It is the inter-city which is the express six hour train currently.<\/p>\n

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That’s something to be noted although Shakespeare might ask, “What’s in a name?”<\/p>\n

Another retired station-master of Jaffna, S.Sivananthan concurs; “Many people think it was only the Yarl Devi that traveled to Jaffna. There were other trains that were un-named which traveled to Jaffna. It’s not about the name of the train – it should be about what if offered – the vistas it opened to us beyond our own peninsula. As young men, our generation traveled the whole of Sri Lanka using the railway. We got to know and understand people and our country better. The cutting off of the train service to Jaffna has affected our youths the most. Many of them have never had a chance to travel by train or see their country in all its beauty. With this opening, may we once again prosper.”<\/p>\n

Having well-traveled, well-informed youth he says, is crucial for this. His vision is coming true even as he speaks. “Most of our passengers are young people who are excitedly using the opportunity to go sight-seeing” smiles T.Surendran, the Chief Station Master of Jaffna. “Currently, we are getting far more ‘tourists’ to the station than people with an actual need to travel.”<\/p>\n

Small wonder! Most of these youths grew up hearing their parents’ nostalgic tales about the Yarl Devi. A people and their princess have been reunited at last. Emotions are still running high. It will take time for them to reach equilibrium. <\/p>\n

courtesy: www.dailynews.lk<\/em><\/p>\n

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Text and Pictures by Thulasi Muttulingam To many people the world over, the ‘people’s princess’ might be an accolade reserved for Diana; for the people of Jaffna however, it is the Yarl Devi. They have waited a long time now for her home-coming – a long anticipated reunion realized only recently with the opening of …<\/p>\n

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