Families need to pack quite a few things if they want to travel in style and luxury.

Family road trips are usually among the fondest memories many of us possess. Life is much simpler now. We check out the internet, view destinations and reviews, and select facilities according to budget and conveniences. But things were vastly different in the past.

 

Packing
Travelling families were literally travelling households. An advisory in a leading Bengali magazine of the 1930s says families should carry things they are familiar with to travel in happiness. What did that mean, you ask. Here's what.

The packing list should include bedding, bedsheets and blankets. If you slept on silk sheets, you should carry them with you, it is advised.

Then came food issues, always important to us Calcuttans. It said, "Motoring families should carry preferred cooking utensils and equipment (hata, khunti etc!). And cutting utensils, storage flasks for tea and milk, plus biscuits, condensed milk and chocolates in tins. Of course, plates and glasses as well. To cook hot stuff, a metal can for fuel and a pressure kerosene stove are essential".

Packing clothes and shoes almost seemed an afterthought.

In other words, the entire household travelled with the family. It was usual to have domestic assistants following the family in a car (if not, then at least by bus or train) to meet up at a pre-arranged location (e.g. Asansol) to help with arrangements.

Elderly ladies and widows of affluent families were advised to travel in a separate car so as not to be disturbed by the habits and noise of children. Their meals, if vegetarian, needed a parallel set of utensils to avoid contact with non vegetarian fare.

Picnics and food breaks

Till the 1950s, there were very few food places even on the busiest highways. There were popular spots on the highway where families would break journey for a meal from the tiffin carrier, or to cook a simple meal.

Magazines advised that dining spots near a petrol station were preferable as these usually had a well or a tube well for fresh, safe water (this was way before our mineral water craze).

In addition, petrol stations were run by foreign companies through educated, qualified managers usually living on site in a bungalow. Most were kind enough to assist travellers.

1937 account says that the manager of a pump on the Grand Trunk Road, Dhanbad crossing, was famous for offering hot tea on winter afternoons and evenings. The magazine said that the least motorists could do to say 'thank you' was to tank up at the pump. He never took payment.

Recommended spots for picnics included the GT Road in the shadow of Pareshnath Hill if travelling north, or the banks of the Rupnarayan (i.e. Kolaghat), if travelling to Puri and near the ferry crossing of Farakka (before Farakka bridge was built) on the Darjeeling route.

 

Entertainment
That was the age of records and record players. One of the highest selling items in the Calcutta market was portable mechanical record players and record boxes.

Any family worth its name carried a box of records and a record player. The range included western and film music for the young, religious music and mythological dramas for the elderly and educational nursery rhymes etc., for the children.

I have come across several accounts in which a family parked under a shady tree, cooked lunch on a stove and consumed it while music played on the record player.

All under a tree alongside a highway! Now that's what I call travelling in style.