I have been living with steam engines and trains since childhood. In the 1970s and 1980s a meter gauge train pulled by a steam engine chugged its way from Ajmer to Delhi. Its load used to be rambunctious school kids from Mayo College, heading back home for the summer vacations. Being exclusively meant for kids, it symbolised freedom from the drudgery of school to the warm comfort of home. I have dedicated these pictures to the next generation who may never see something as romantic as a steam engine.

Years later, today, the train has stopped running, the kids have all grown up and Ajmer is now connected by broad gauge. The rickety steam engine has been confined to a forgotten railway shunting yard and electric and diesel locomotives thunder between the two cities. What remains are just memories. Memories of that breathtaking journey – sweeping bajra fields, the steam engine bellowing clouds of smoke and the coal getting into the eyes of little kids straining out of windows.

My search for the “old grannies” took me to far off places – Wankaner in Gujarat, which had the last passenger and goods train in the country that runs on steam; Howrah, which has one of the largest loco sheds, and also to remote parts of Assam and Nilgiris to capture the beauty and splendour of steam engines.

The romance of these old steam engines would not have emerged so totally in colour. I wanted to capture the essence of the engines in their glory days.