Hold All

During summer, every year, my parents travelled from the city to our native village. The preferred mode of travel was the railways. This rail travel took around 36 hours—usually, two nights and one day.

Spending two nights in the train entailed sleeping on the rail coach seats—‘seats’ by day and ‘berths’ by night. In those days (before I was born), seats in the general rail coaches (i.e., with the lowest fare) were made of pressed wood.

Sleeping for two nights on the hard, wooden seats was a challenge. And that’s where the hold-all became handy.

I don’t know the official name of this piece of luggage; but my parents used to call it a hold-all. Made from strong canvas, the hold-all was rolled into a bundle, and held in place by belts with buckles. One had to unfasten the belts to roll-out the hold-all. On the inside of the canvas, at the two ends there are huge pockets. My parents used to fill the pockets with pillows, bed sheets, blankets, etc. All these were used to transform the hard, wooden sleeping seats into comfortable, soft beds.

Now-a-days, seats in our railway coaches have cushions. I don’t know what happened to our hold-all. Maybe it got torn or maybe we gave it away.

I rarely see the hold-all with rail passengers.

Recently, I was waiting to board a train at a busy city railway platform. A family of three walked by. The child ambled along with the mother. The father carried a familiar roll.
And I could not stop myself from shouting out aloud—HOLD ALL!