Balajee Speaks - Part 1

OK - I am sorry to all you few readers for disappointing you with no new posts. I guess travelling alone for many weeks made me just drift away thoughtlessly and thoughtfully. But that's a different story for a different time. Not to despair people - the blog has found its saviour - Balajee Venkataraman. Balajee has witten his version of things we experienced together. Here goes the first part I hope of many to come.
Disclaimer:

Most of what is narrated here are experiences that are common to Rakesh and I. Have tried my best to bring in my own perspective on things.

"They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones" says George Orwell in his classic work '1984' whilst describing the 'proles' (possibly from the word 'proletariat'). I felt that he might as well have been describing me as I have often thought my life to be quite uneventful and sheltered compared to some of my friends.

So, what better way to open up the mind and cast away prejudices than by travel?

The Train

Rakesh had resigned a month ago and I, a couple of weeks afterward. Gupta, however was yet to cast off his working–class chains. So, he almost missed the train. Rakesh and I considered 'punishing the ***tard' for being his usual un-punctual self by deserting him. We couldn't, because Gupta had the tickets.

When we boarded the train, we discovered, much to our annoyance, that Gupta's very expensive travel agent had reserved only two seats for the three of us. Rakesh sneaked away to the top berth and had it all to himself. Gupta and I had to share a berth for the night after a heated discussion on the possibilities of whose feet would be in whose mouth.

We woke up to the cries of "Chai" – I more, out of fear of being scalded by the hot containers which the vendors carried than anything else.

A train journey in India is one of the most enriching experiences anyone can have. The scenery is awe-inspiring and the train buzzes with life. The sight of a solitary tree in the middle of a field can move even a stone to poetry. Travel by train (preferably window – seat) is a great way to introspect and discover oneself.

Digression aside, we passed most of the morning reading books (I was reading '1984', Rakesh 'Catch -22', while Gupta had to be content with his economics textbook).

All of us downed chai after chai in the afternoon while Gupta and I listened to Bob Dylan – Of course, Rakesh had brought his own music as he strongly disapproved of the very broad category of 'stupid English music'.

One of the first major stops on the way was Nagpur. No, we did not buy oranges there!
Instead we sampled kachoris , while simultaneously avoiding a large number of inquisitive cows – yes, they wanted a share. I kept wondering what the poet Ogden Nash, who wrote "The cow is of a bovine ilk, One end is moo and the other milk" would say if he happened to see these cows.

We passed some time by thinking up politically incorrect remarks about every state we passed through. We spoke of the great 'Ghandi' at Sevagram and at Ballarshah, where we had the worst idlis ever, we made observations on why a south-indian dish had to be crucified so in the north. (Is Ballarshah above the Vindhyas, I wonder? Sorry to bring up the north-south divide but it's a pet topic).

What was comical was that Rakesh and Gupta tried to smoke a beedi every time the train stopped somewhere between stations, but they were always thwarted by the signal turning green at just the wrong moment. As they pondered a beedi-less day, I jostled with fellow passengers to re-charge my mobile phone. (Of course there was no queue near the re-charge point, for is not the railways a mobile version of India?) .

In the evening, we struck up a conversation with a man from Bangalore (Yes, you guessed it – he was working with an IT firm). He seemed convinced that we had been laid off due to the prevailing poor market conditions (the great depression of 2008 they ll call it in the future). So much for us telling him that we had resigned of our own accord and that we wanted to travel a great deal.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we reached Delhi sometime in the mid-morning on our third day on the train."