4th September 2001. On train 3:00 PM: glad to have reservations. Last time I traveled with my friend, I’ll call him Abraham, we were squashed uncomfortably in a general compartment all the way from Haridwar to Calcutta. My friend is a heavy smoker and my dread of getting caught in the habit, especially to kill time keeps me writing, scribbling, making notes of whatever comes across, sometimes even what my friend relates. Abraham is a surgeon and he has pretty interesting anecdotes to share, the slip shod histories they take in the nursing home, general one-liners hurriedly jotted down in skimpy files, sometimes so very inadequate that one has to ask the patient before operating on him as to what operation he was planned for. Abraham used to be a good reader in MBBS days and now he just can’t stand the sight of a book, any book, preferring to blow smoke out of the train window and gazing vacantly at the countryside rushing by .. does surgery do that to you, I wonder.

3:15 PM: the train leaves Kharagpur. Sounds of trinkets and clapping ... a mental picture of eunuchs, a vague feeling, almost a wish they may be just girls after all. As they approach us one of them keeps a hand on Abraham's head. I dish out 10/-, feeling threatened with the look of fear in Abraham’s eyes.

6:00 PM: train window. The rain swept landscape, a black sky, green washed paddy fields and red huts with red mud roads to match.

A few rock outcrops sprouting from the green ... as if peacefully grazing animals, some of them with shapes of domesticated dinosaurs, ponds which take on the color of the surrounding green and a host of kaash flowers blooming amidst all these. A name to this place, station Sini flashes by ... all trains don't stop here. Like Kedarnath Singh, I don’t wonder why then does this station exist at all. A few wet lands ... marsh lands ... a black elegant Santhal woman walking on the red mud road towards the village ... a game of football in a large green field in progress, towns and trees suddenly sprouting in the green ... a blue hill in the background, joining with a few larger ones further down and, as the mountains approach nearer and nearer, they start dominating the train window. The train nears a larger town, Chakradharpur, and its power station houses a few poles, which somehow resemble alien robots (with all its elaborate ceramic work) watching us while we wonder when they’ll come alive. On the other window, a red temple top peers out from the green. The sky has reached a state where it's breaking up into myriad colors of blue, green and red.

8:00 PM: Buying water bottles lavishly each and every time we feel thirsty instead of filling it up like old times when we were students and traveling on the general compartment. It's not always that we couldn’t afford reservations at that time but more often our journeys would be planned all at the last moment.

5th September. Woke up with thoughts on the ancient Harappan civilization 6000BC? River Saraswati dried up 3000 BC? The spinal fluid in the central canal too dries up at the age of 40. City hutments, factory chimneys, a trail of sigmoid smoke across the sky... Telegraph poles stand in a single file.

8:00 AM: Nagpur station: bought a newspaper ... lots of beggars with cut hands and deformed fingers (? lepromatous). Ignored them like a thick skinned rhino while they carried on their incessant whining ... initially extolling your virtues but as they despair at your indifference, finally leave showering the choicest abuses (which are thankfully garbled and difficult to decipher). A lot of children sweep the train compartment free lance and hold out their hands seeking compensation for their bit of work. It’s probably better than begging (which angers our traditional values) but then it encourages child labor. An old man free-lance sweeper appears. He looks like having shifted from the begging school to the more techno ideal savvy money for work school. However his demeanor is more of a beggar as he whines for his money from everybody in the compartment holding out his broom as a proof of having finished his job. There was hardly anything left for him to sweep by the earlier children who preceded him by a few minutes. You wonder if he follows them on purpose.

9:00 AM: Talked to a young fellow passenger on the window opposite mine. Stays and earns his living in Bombay. Started working in silver chains after studying till the 6th standard at his home-town Arambagh. Later after 3 years he was taken by a relative to Bombay and has been working on gold chains ever since. His day starts at 6:00 AM and ends at 12:00 AM at midnight. Really! to think doctors had all the work. Initially he was an apprentice for 2 years and only recently since the last 6 months has been confirmed with a salary of 5000 per month ... much more than what his elder brother gets, 500/-per month for fixing gas cylinders.

9:20 AM: The beggars of Bombay have a more violent attitude according to Abraham. They aren’t just content with abuses for non-givers but even resort to violence if particularly ignored ... more of dacoits than beggars. Do they have a mafia backing, we wonder. As I write ... a crutch glides along the recently swept compartment floor followed by a man with an amputated thigh and eyes begging notes.

10:05 AM: Rows of crops looking like a huge kitchen garden. Abraham feels it's cotton. The sun smiles pleasantly at them ... not a single cloud in the sky. At 12:00 noon it's going to be real raving mad HOT.

10:20 AM: A blind flute player with an out of tune flute. Again begging with a flavor added. The woman with two small children lying lazily in the middle berth finally climbs down throwing nervous glances as she dangles her legs.

10:30 AM: Tomato soup ... Abraham’s incessant capacity to keep guzzling. The price of most food items is 10/-, be it a packet of wafers, tomato soup or a bottle of water. Two stations with peculiar names - Barabamboo and Retard - flash by.

4:30 PM: Abraham’s story - an anesthetist beats up somebody and throws him off the bus and later, after he reaches home, gets a call for a OT case. Goes and finds it was the man whom he’d clobbered.

5:00 PM: Passed a few mountains looking like Mesas ... nearing Nasik, a good distance from Manmad.

6:00 PM: Bombay VT. A long queue for the train to Goa ... no choice except the general compartment. Surprisingly clean for a general compartment. Joined people sitting on the floor. Wished we had kept the newspapers. After some time, I found myself rolling off on to a peaceful sleep below a berth. Sleep knows no barriers ... once asleep, there's no difference between the soft cushions of first class and the general compartment floor. This philosophy is ill spent on Abraham who considers it below his dignity to sit, let alone sleep, on the floor. He's understandably mad at me when I greet him early in the morning commenting how much he resembles a sleeping horse. The train has meanwhile stopped near a tunnel and there's a perfect dawn breaking out of the window, the Western Ghat, a welcome green behind the mist peeling off as the dark clouds atop the hills promise rain.

It was a bit chilly. Abraham rightly pointed out that I was being irresponsible as one of the reasons for his staying awake was keeping an eye on the luggage. I relented and tucked him into one of the berths which, by now, had become empty as a lot of people had got down in South Goa. He got a bit of rest for the next two hours. The air pillow, thoughtfully packed by Mother, was a big help.