WE DO NOT HAVE FULL information on who M. Sanyal was. All I can say is the gentleman worked
for South Eastern Railway as AFI, a term which probably means Assistant Foreman at
the locomotive shed in some category. Again we do not know which loco shed he
worked in, it could be Kharagpur, or Adra, Dongargarh, maybe even Nagpur.
One can of
course check up at the railway divisional office and locate who Sanyal was, and
where he is stationed currently, but that will take time. But why the Dickens
should we do so, trying to find the whereabouts of the man?
I was
drawn to M. Sanyal for the plain reason that he was a railwayman endowed with special
artistic skill. Without knowing anything about the man, I can say he showed remarkable
skill in drawing caricatures. And so, back in the 1980s, when South Eastern
Railway decided to bring out a tiny booklet called Fuel Economy Guide, Mr
Sanyal’s services were requisitioned to illustrate the publication.
The Fuel
Economy Guide was a tiny booklet meant for official use, and a copy was issued
to each steam loco driver. In it, the driver entered his name and various
particulars, and on subsequent pages, he would be required to enter particulars
such as the coal consumed on each particular trip, the timings of arrival and
departure of his train, and so on.
By itself
the fuel guide might have been a drab little booklet, but Sanyal was asked to
illustrate the guide. His artistic sense can be judged by the illustrations he
executed. His pictures show no sign of immaturity. Each exhibits the kind of masterly
strokes one may expect from a professional cartoonist, besides giving us a
glimpse of how it was like in a steam locomotive shed.
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| The cover page of the Fuel Economy Guide shows a train speeding across the countryside. Bright clouds in the sky and soaring birds lend a colorful charm to the composition. |
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| The opening page of the Fuel Economy Guide |
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| This railway driver is holding his book upside down. Such a thing was entirely possible, for many steam drivers of old were illiterate folk |
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| In many of his cartoons, the artist depicts a driver as a man of voluminous proportions |
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| Ah, the inside of a cab! |
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| With this handsome compliment from the coal checker, how pleased our driver looks... |