It’s a warm and balmy afternoon in Pondicherry, as I dig into crispy, yet soft dosais. Mrs. Sivaramakrishnan seems to be in no mood to listen to my pleadings about having had enough and quickly slides in another perfect roundel. Prof. Sivaramakrishnan looks on dispassionately. The vacant and blank face hiding a ferocious mind. He and I have been discussing the lamentable state of India’s transportation sector and in particular the Indian Railways that is so dear to both of us. The talk soon turns to general travel and how fast connections these days are ruining the pleasure of languid discovery.
“When Ian (Manning) and I started travelling in the late ’60s, we hardly took any express trains. Slow trains. Passenger trains. They were the preferred means allowing us to stop at will, get down and explore and afterwards writing the journals and notes. These days all you young chaps want to hurtle to your destinations on the fastest trains.”
“But sir, there are hardly enough passenger trains these days. And what there are, offer no convenient connections onwards”, I blather, trying to save an entire generation from the broad sweep of the paint brush.
“You look hard enough, you will find a way”, he says with an argument-ending flourish.
On a blisteringly hot day in Secunderabad, I ponder over that challenge. The heat haze makes the tracks heading out bend into weird shapes. “Apparently it’s 45 degrees today”, says a woman to her companion as they walk past me. I turn around and head back to find a seat on the Golconda Express – the slowest train between Hyderabad and Vijaywada. Like all things wrong with the Indian Railways, this once fast express is a shadow of its former self. Since it is a stop-everywhere kind of train, there are hundreds of people waiting for the doors to open and occupy a seat. I bide my time reading “Under the Sun” – a collection of letters written by Bruce Chatwin. Ten minutes later, there is a murmuring commotion at the back of the platform, a sure sign that the doors are being opened. Soon enough, I spot someone unbolting my coach. I fight off a man around my age, but twice as hefty and a woman who seems to be a part-time wrestler, dart to the single seats by the window and put down my backpack. Behind me, a marauding invasion force.
There is an innate ability in people traveling by the Indian Railways to “adjust”: Find seats and space for themselves and luggage where there are none. And in the fifteen minutes I spend watching the goings on in my coach, I can’t help but wonder why this courtesy and a sense of selflessness doesn’t extend to outside the train. More or less everyone found a seat, even if it is two-inch square of a wooden bench. The jute sacks, bales of sarees holding stuff, the wicker baskets, the toolbox, the crowbar, the gumboots, all go either underneath the bench or above on the luggage rack.
Friendly smiles and nods all around the eight-seater bay I am in. Everyone seems settled, waiting for the engine to toot. And toot it does after a few minutes. The hiss of the brake release, the squeak of the wheels and we are moving. Clearing the platform canopy and into the intense heat, I realize the enormity (or sheer stupidity, depending on your view) of what I have set out to do. Suddenly, Singaperumal Koil seems eons away. 834 kilometres. 26 hours. I have no appetite for slow trains anymore. I want a fast express, with the air-conditioner on full blast and a pint of beer on the sly. Too late.
The relatively clean suburbs of city fall away quickly and we are soon stretching our legs on the barren, rocky plateau towards Kazipet. The highway to Warangal, which runs parallel, is a right mess with traffic playing a game of dice with contractors trying to expand the number of lanes. I wonder about the safety of driving in such conditions. This becomes apparent a few kilometres later as I see the carcass of a car completely crushed from a collision with a bus or a truck. Our first stop is the town of Bhongir. Dominated by a big granite monolith on which a dilapidated fort sits, it has the charm of a pig sty. The platform is fly-blown and there is a roaring dry wind that picks up dust and throws it inside the train with no mercy. A samosa seller is selling his food confidently. The bay gets more crowded. Where twelve people sat, now sixteen sit.
The uneven nature of the plateau is apparent in the way the line is constructed – a few kilometres we climb up, then fall and then rise and fall. Since I am at the front of the train and leaning out of the windows, there is a severe roller-coaster feel to it, the speed at most times a steady 110kmph. At our next stop Aler, we halt for a quite a long time, allowing the Delhi bound Duronto Express to overtake us. The heat is really getting to me now and I drain the remaining droplets from the 2 litre water bottle I had bought an hour and half ago. The Duronto, with its hideous and nauseating paint job passes by in a haze of dust and air-horns. Our entire train seems to heave a collective ‘phew!’ as we are finally given the go ahead.
The terrain doesn’t change much, except for the odd appearance of a hillock or two at the base of which are some paddy fields. This is a desperately water deficient area, so it strikes me odd that a crop like rice is cultivated.
At Jangaon, our next halt, we are greeted by a mass of people occupying almost every inch of track. On the platforms, there are huge tents filled with plastic chairs. Atop the support poles, loudspeakers are blaring folk music. At one end of the platform, there are fires on which stand cauldrons and large pans. The smell says its biryani. As the train comes to a halt, the entire station erupts in chants of “Jai Telangana”. A couple of minutes later this stops and a deathly silence descends. Breaking the spell, a loud voice booms across the loudspeakers: “Telangana Zindabad, Andhra Down Down”. The crowd repeats this. The singular voice booms again. The crowd once again repeats. The hairs on the back of my neck start tingling. It is unexpectedly unnerving to watch a crowd being worked into a frenzy by a motivated voice. Hush again.
The voice is now calmer than what it was five minutes ago, but it is just as powerful. I have no idea who the speaker is, but his command over language, diction and delivery are impeccable. Jangaon and its neighbouring town of Ghanpur are the ideaological hearts of the Telangana movement and the speaker takes full advantage of this by launching into a tirade against everyone who has let the people of these parts down. I have never been in the middle of a large scale political protest before and it is riveting to listen, but at the same time, I am still extremely nervous about the threat of violence. Matters are not helped by the fact that train’s occupancy has quadrupled. There are people crammed everywhere with around thirty in the bay I sit.
An hour later, we still haven’t moved. Even though I have a three hour buffer to make my connecting train, I still don’t know how long we’ll be here. I am nervous and exhausted already. The tension is broken a few minutes later when an announcement is made over the tannoy that the protests are over and that our train will start soon. Departure from Jangaon isn’t incident free however, as a few protestors have forcebly occupied some seats. The railway police is called and with the aid of some lusty swings of the lathi, half a dozen teenagers are thrown out of the train.
Kazipet arrives without more delay. The town, once dominated by the big station and marshalling yard, has now outgrown the railways and is now well on its way to meeting its sister town Warangal somewhere halfway. As a stamp of its growing independence from the railways, the huge holding and shunting yard is devoid of any traffic, except for a couple of dusty and tired looking locomotives waiting patiently with utterly bored drivers manning them. Kazipet is also the interchange point for people heading north into the heart of Telangana and to the arid edges of Maharashtra. As a result, the train almost empties itself first, then miraculously fills up again with people heading towards the large coastal towns of the Godavari Delta. This emptying and filling isn’t without its usual drama – punches are thrown, mothers are insulted and genitals are threatened. Everything amplified by the 47 degrees heat and the glorious lilt of Deccani.
Warangal is reached rather gingerly. For a hugely important town, the station is a letdown. There are mountains of construction debris everywhere and passengers waiting to board the train are crammed into small islands of space. The PA drones on emphatically that the train will stop for an extended period of time and that passengers distribute themselves across coaches and not crowd the ones close to where they are standing. But this being India, no one pays any heed and there is a melee. Thankfully, the coach I am sitting isn’t overwhelmed by the amount of people boarding and when we make a slow start, it looks more or less the same as when we arrived.
I’ve always liked Warangal. Despite its size, the desert like heat and dust, it has always found a way to impose itself rather largely on Andhra Pradesh. It was for many years the ideological (and commercial) centre for the Naxalite movement. And now, the equally determined Telangana struggle. It is a town where people freely speak their minds without much goading and inhibition. And like much of small town India, this debate happens in the seedy, smelly bars that ring the railway and bus station. On a previous visit, I had been hunching over some fiery chicken wings and a not-so-cold bottle of Haywards 5000, when three people on a table to my left were discussing their exploits of looting a police armoury at the edge of town. Naxalite R&R, I suppose.
Strange are the places where people you knew died. There is a morbid fascination to look out, recollect and imagine what it was at the time when the person you knew and loved died. I’d gone past Kesamudram half a dozen times since Hari’s death, but on every such trip, this nondescript town in the middle of a rocky, thorny shrub forest had arrived and departed past midnight. This time too, I had planned on forcing myself to sleep through my stop here, but a sudden jolt wakes me up. I find myself staring at a bright, yellow circular name board that I had not imagined ever to be seeing. The crowd in the coach has become restive – the heat has been amplified by a vicious, dust wind blowing across the entire area. There are shouts to water vendors to offer absolutely ice-chilled bottles. Buttermilk vendors, with their steel buckets carrying sachets topped with ice are almost mauled.
I stare out to my right to the empty tracks. This is where they had bought the fire ravaged coach in which Hari had died. I imagine the exact spot it had been parked. Was it just opposite where I was sitting? Or a few hundred metres ahead? Was Hari’s berth completely burned down? Or did he die because of asphyxiation? I turn to my left where the heat, thirst and hunger has turned everyone inside primed for violence. I turn and look straight ahead. The passenger opposite me has a thin, raked face. There is a deep scar running across from his left ear to the middle of the cheek. He stares at me with a mix of anger and helplessness from thick lenses framed by a rectangle of black.
The entire scene is heartbreakingly dystopian.
Death imposes on us some unwarranted changes. What dooms us is the fact we can’t understand why we have changed. Is it that only death compels us to introspect? Is that lessons that the living gave aren’t fully taught until they are dead? Hari taught me perserverance, patience, love and more importantly the place of grief and guilt in one’s life. He taught this over Laphroig, Schnapps and other fine alcohol. Yet it took his death for me to get the import. Why is this so? Is this true for all? Or have I been treated to, as a lone member in the audience, an act in the twistedly deviant play called life?
When we eventually leave Kesamudram, I am distraught and in barely hidden tears. The Golconda Express meanwhile swings left and right on top of embankments that rise moderately high over the surrounding open shrub. I spot a few shepherds herding their goats in the far distance. Some oddly shaped and meagre fields break the monotony. Some grow rice, some brinjals and some maize. It all feels wholly inefficient and I can’t imagine what the farmers who toil away in the heat make for their efforts. It is well past five in the evening, but the sun is merciless. With the embankments twisting and turning, one is never in shadow for long. When the strong heat hits me every few minutes, there is an immediate weakening of resolve to keep this going. Perhaps I should bail out at Khammam, a moderately large and busy city that has a selection of places that serve a cold drink and have been chilled to perfection by air-conditioning?
The heat becomes so soul sapping as we approach Dornakal that my eyes start burning, my lips resemble grade A sand paper and the skin on my face feels like it is about to peel off in layers of trickling blood and sticky sweat. I am forced to drain half my water to wet a towel and tie it around on my head in the style of a Bedouin. An old couple on the other side of the bay watch astonished as I do this. The old man’s eyes lock on to mine.
“Can we drink some of the water?”
“Yes, please take this. Why aren’t you carrying any water?”
“Our bottle broke when we boarding at Kesamudram and we really can’t afford to spend 10 rupees for a new one.”
There is temporary relief in the form of large cloud cover at Dornakal. This is a fairly large railway junction, even if the town itself isn’t. Almost all lines are occupied by heavy, bulging wagons full of coal either from the Singareni Collieries about 120 kilometers to the North or bound to the Bhadrachalam power plant. A considerable crowd has gotten off here, mostly bound for the deep interior of Telangana and some even to the border areas of Chhattisgarh.
This allows me to stretch my legs across the aisle. Usually this most pleasurable of feelings, it is denied to me this time by the sound of cloth ripping. For a brief second, I look around to find the culprit, but I know instinctively and embarrassingly, that the sound came from my own pair of trousers tearing apart the seam. But which one? Even the most rational amongst us turn to God at such times and mutter “Oh, God, please let it not be the one runs down the butt. Please?” My prayers seem to have been answered as I find the culprit to be a seam that runs just above the knee. The trousers I am wearing are well worn and have been a great source of travel comfort these past three years, but the afternoon’s heat and sweat seems to have done them in. The rip was loud enough to attract the attention of fellow passengers and there are embarrassing glances and barely contained guffaws all around. I try to fold up the surrounding cloth to close the gap, but my efforts go in vain and I have to be content in showing my decidedly hairy and unsexy thighs to the larger world. What’s life without a healthy dash of tragicomedy in it?
Cities with long and great railway histories have a tendency to announce their arrival with big dollops of drama. Vijaywada isn’t any different. A few kilometres out, the line from Khammam rides a long, sweeping embankment. The curve is so sharp that the rear three fourths of the train, all twinkling in bluish-white fluorescence is visible without even having to crane my neck out. From this curve, the giant marshalling yard with its huge light masts looks imposing. The faint edges of Gandhi Hill that sits like a watchdog over the entire city become visible and if one has impeccable eyesight and sense of direction, one can even make out the wall of the barrage across the river Krishna.
It is a city that is proud of its railway connection. It has thrived because it is one of South India’s busiest and most important junctions. Trains arrive and depart from four different directions at all hours. There isn’t a time when the station stands still. It is forever busy and on the move. And such, the larger city also has this character. Hungry at 2AM? No problems at all. Delicious and hot food will always be available. Tired and thirsty at 1AM? Plenty of places to put feet up and down a drink or two.
It is also a city that has taken me in its arms and nurtured me and given me hope whenever I’ve needed it. It is a city that I’ve come many times to escape. It is a city I’ve come many times to renew. Gandhi Hill, where I once sat for hours on end watching the trains below, coping with a death I thought I didn’t have the strength for. The escape ledges on the trusses of the beautiful bridge across the river where I’ve spent many hours watching the water roar and flow and shimmer and stay still.
It is also a city where I now need buy a new pair of trousers. This is what I tell my friend Jayakar who has come to see me. Jayakar is so tall that I spot his head before anything else on the platform! Despite the delays at Jangaon, the Golconda Express seems to have rediscovered some of its long lost glory in between and made it to Vijaywada more or less on time. I inform Jayakar that after the necessary shopping for trousers, I intend to drag him to my favourite bar in the city, the Eagle. It is a seedy, shady establishment of the finest order where the only thing redder than its interior is the chilli coating on a serving of chicken wings.
“But, saar, there is some crazy traffic jam on the road to Guntur, so best to take train only.”
“Really? But I have lots of time.”
“No, saar. I don’t trust this road traffic.”
My original plan now needed to be modified. Instead of spending a couple of hours in Vijaywada, then taking the road to Guntur from where I would take the 1AM passenger further South, I had to make a dash for Guntur by train. Jayakar informs me that the last commuter train heading that side would depart at 9PM. It was now 8.25PM. With an interlude of shopping to be completed.
We rush out of the station area, with Jayakar driving his trusty scooter as deftly as Mic Doohan and careen through a few narrow streets to come to a shop that has a giant Levis board outside. 9PM departure or not, I was certain that the last thing I wanted to wear was a pair of denims for the remainder of the journey.
“Listen, I don’t have time, but do you have any other type of pants other than jeans?”
“No, sir.”
“No, khakis, cargoes etc.?”
“No, but I have jean shorts”
To avoid further sartorial embarrassment, I rush out and instruct Jayakar to take me elsewhere. After narrowly avoiding hitting a cow, an old lady and a couple of people with heavy shopping bags we come to a store with mannequins with such pointy breasts that they could be used to teach geometry. This store has what I need. To the great bemusement of staff inside, I walk out wearing the newly purchased pair. Jayakar gently informs me that the bar code tag is still sticking out the back.
It is now 8.50PM. Jayakar puts his superbike racing skills to full use, weaving and darting through unusually heavy traffic for the hour. There is a brief hold up before the station junction because of a bus having gently nudged an autorickshaw. But Jayakar manages to maneuver his way out and drops me outside at precisely 8.58PM. There is no time to buy a ticket, so I throw a few Hail Mary’s at the Patron Saint of the Indian Railways and dart to the platform. The faint horn of the diesel locomotive sounds as I jump aboard one of the last coaches.
The excitement of the last half hour has meant that I have completely forgotten how hot and humid it still is. My less than fifteen minute old trousers are soaked in sweat and my T-shirt throws off a dreadful pong. There is temporary relief for five minutes as the train crosses the Krishna river and its cooling breeze.
The ride is slow and plodding. The track isn’t in great shape and the frequent juddering doesn’t inspire confidence. I spend the hour collecting my thoughts and ruminating on the day that has passed. Had I partly accomplished what I had set out to do? Despite taking an “express” train, had I adhered to the spirit of Prof. Sivaramakrishnan’s statement? Was it worth all the trouble? The intense heat, the resignation and self-loathing at Kesamudram. The utter shame of walking around in a pair of torn pants. Had I learned something about the pleasures of slow travel? Is this something one can do without recourse to extensive planning and the cop-out thoughts of an air conditioned room at the end of it all?
It is well past ten as we wheeze our way into Guntur Jn. I hadn’t realised that the passenger I am on goes all the way to Bangalore, through the driest and harshest part of Andhra Pradesh. There are few roads and the people poor in these areas, so the train with its cheap fares is an extremely popular way to get around. How popular? I find out as soon as the train enters the platform. People scamper on board without even a passing thought to the plight of passengers ready to detrain. In the resulting rush, I almost trample a slender, young boy who has been thrust though the open emergency window by his father to grab a seat for him and his family.
Having missed a nice dinner in Vijaywada, I am determined to sample whatever delights Guntur might throw my way, but the humidity makes any exploration, however brief, soul sapping. I abandon the idea of heading outside, instead scan my eyes for a store on the platform that sells packaged dinner. I locate one, but the only available item on sale is a very oily and very fly blown lemon rice. Fortunately, a few metres down the platform, there’s a fruit stall that also doubles up as juice joint. I order two glasses of mango with extra sugar and gulp it down with great relief.
There still remains a little more than two hours for the departure of my passenger further south. I have had enough with the heat, humidity and the resulting self pity arising from it that I troop towards the retiring rooms in hopes of finding a bed to rest for a while. An enormous woman greets me on the stairs leading up to the landing. She is the matron who is in charge of the rooms and dormitory.
“No room available”, she says even before I attempt to ask.
“I need it only for two hours or so. I need to take the 1AM passenger to Gudur.”
“No, sorry”
“Please, please? Anything will do. I have a slight fever and need to rest”, I fake.
“Hmm, ok, lets see.”
Puppy eyes or fat gut, I will never know, but I do manage to get a single bed cubicle that’s air-conditioned. All the steel that’s built up over the years of hard, no nonsense travel melts when one is ushered into a room that’s been cooled to 23 deg. Celsius perfection. I never want to leave this space. Never. I then proceed to strip myself naked and allow the blast of cold, cold air to hit every sweaty part of my body. I contort to allow the draft to reach parts of myself that I was sure didn’t exist.
The soporific effect of this chilly blast is enormous and I soon find myself drifting off to sleep. So, for the next hour and a half I play this game of “Oh, wake up, you bastard, don’t start slumbering.”
I put an end to this and at precisely 12.15AM find myself at the ticket counter buying a fare to Gudur. The air-conditioning has seduced me completely and every step I take towards the platform of my waiting train is a test of will and determination. Whatever little I have of it breaks down when I notice a huge throng of people in a couple of coaches nearest to the locomotive. I jog desperately towards the lone reserved coach in hope of finding a comfortable berth. The ticket examiner crushes this by loudly proclaiming to a person before me in the queue that all berths are full. Still, I try to talk to him. Plead with him. Surely, there is a quota in which I can be accommodated? I am willing to stand at the door, sit on the floor even, for a while if it means that I can stretch my legs out on foam padded berths. No.
Much like a petulant, spoilt, rich child who has been denied his tenth ice-cream of the day, I storm off in disgust towards the rear of the train to find a seat. Thankfully, most of these coaches aren’t full and I am soon able to find a choice place: By the emergency window. These seats are a train person’s dream. With no bars or grills running across, one can stick one’s head out with great delight and note every kilometre of terrain, every turn and climb, every little detail with great relish. On a hot summer night, it also doubles up as the best ventilated space on a train.
My bay has sparse occupancy. For once, I eschew the single seat and take the long bench that sits anywhere from four to seven, depending on size and crowding. Soon, I am joined by a couple of young boys. They seem barely into their teens, but already they look old, weary and have puffy eyes. Each carries a small, improvised bag made out of bedsheets. They are also carrying a small plastic packet of food which they share as soon as they sit down and arrange themselves. I busy myself in my notes.
1AM. The locomotive lets out an uncharacteristically mournful wail and we inch forward. Other than the boys and myself, there are just two more people in the immediate space. I had expected crowding, so it feels rather nice to stretch out and luxuriate unexpectedly in the middle of an unreserved coach of a passenger train in India. The lights of Guntur disappear quickly and we swing South East towards Tenali on some appallingly maintained permanent way. Every turnout induces terrifying shuddering, every curve an exaggerated squeal from the flanges. With space available and the heat finally giving way to some pleasantness, I fall asleep. I expected to be woken up violently at Tenali and forced to sit straight, but that doesn’t happen and I slumber on for another half hour contentedly.
Calm is broken at around 3AM when we halt at the town of Bapatla. A bright lamp on the platform shining right into my eyes wakes me up to find about ten people hovering over my legs.
“Get up, get up. This seat isn’t your father’s property you know?” shouts an elderly gent.
“Alright, alright, calm down. I’ve cleared the space haven’t I? You don’t have to shout you know?”
“Hmph.”
It seems like he and his extended family are keen to occupy every single inch of space in this and the adjacent bay. Both of which explode into cacophony. Everyone in the travel group seems to have gotten on board, yet there is near continuous wailing and hollering and name calling and abject confusion around.
“Where is Abdul?”
“He’s here, with me”, comes a distant shout.
“Accha, Sameena?” No answer.
“Yaar, where is Sameena?”
“Daddy, I am here”, from the other side.
“Raisa Begum? Raisa Begum?”
“Idhar, idhar”, reassuringly.
The two boys who had boarded along with me in Guntur now seem as dazed as I am. Where there were just four in the bay, there are now at least 20. Over hand gestures and even more shouting, luggage and belongings are passed around. Cheap leather suitcases, hard cases, steel trunks, small jute bags, larger cloth bags, bales of sarees. Towards the end of the exercise, I even spot a child’s bicycle being passed around.
Meanwhile, the passenger plods on in inky darkness. I try to catch some sleep, but the sheer noise around me makes this impossible. Still, weariness catches up by the time we halt for longer than required at Chirala and I bury my head between by hands and zone out.
At Uppugunduru, I wake up with a fright when a passing freight train decides to makes its presence felt with a long press of its horn. I crane my neck out a little to see that we’ve been halted for quite a while and there are people from my train milling about the platform. The reason I find out a minute later. An express train comes charging down the main line in a haze of dust and air-horns. It is too quick for me to note its destination. We too are given the green signal a few minutes later and our painful plodding resumes. My time-table lets me know that Uppugunduru is about 110km from Guntur and it has taken us more than four hours to get here.
On the opposite track, trains, both express and freight rush past us at great speeds and at regular intervals. This is after all, the main trunk route towards North India from the South and to expect anything else would be stupid. It seems rather unnatural for our passenger to keep going at this speed. Yes, it needs to stop at every station, but why can’t it be quick between them? It feels like a horse being held back by a chariot that has only one wheel.
Dawn breaks a little before we reach Ongole. The traveling group, meanwhile has rearranged itself again. I find myself surrounded by the ladies of the family. 16 to 1. They are all making themselves up for the day – holding up compact mirrors in the hope of finding and destroying an offending zit or pimple, daubing puffs of talcum powder on their faces and pleating their hair.
At Ongole, after getting an assurance from the ladies that my seat will not allowed to be usurped, I get down for a stretch and coffee. There is only so much time one can spend keeping one’s legs at an awkward angle on top of a jutting steel trunk. I am hungry too. I confess, hot, crisp vadas are my weakness and I will have them any time of the day. So, at 5.45AM, I buy two full plates from a vendor and load myself with all the oil and cholesterol one needs for a few days. On the opposite platform, a troop of monkeys is disturbing the relative peace. They are squealing and scampering their way across the roof, occasionally jumping down and snatching bags of food from unsuspecting passengers, who let out terrified screams. This brings out a few portly members of the railway police, who in their leather chappals and ill-fitting uniforms do such a poor job of driving the simians away that there is soon alarm on the platform. In all of this drama, I barely notice our train has started moving. I jump on board and take over my seat from a young boy who seems distraught at losing prime space. Young or not, no one takes the window seat away from me.
We are now passing through some of the driest parts of Andhra Pradesh. A dull brown and ochre dominates the hue here. Miles upon miles on dry, flaky ground with very occasional green patches of rice and maize and sugarcane. The scenery uninteresting and the pace completely boring, I turn to my Bruce Chatwin book. After a while, concentrating on reading becomes a chore. The ladies have started chittering. I pretend read while snooping in on the conversations. There is talk about husbands and cousins and brothers and sisters. There is talk about weddings and flowers and expensive dresses and footwear. There is talk about a rumour that one husband hasn’t been entirely faithful. There is talk about a young woman not wanting to get married until she is 30. There is talk about Preity Zinta and Arjun Rampal and Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. There is talk about manicures and pedicures and other expensive beauty salons in Nellore.
In all my years of travel on the railways, this has been the one constant: people talk and discuss the most intimate details of their lives despite the presence of complete strangers. They talk about their failures and successs, their loves and heartbreaks, their wishes and hopes as if the six to eight people around them understand completely and can empathise and sympathise without any prejudice. To strangers we will bare our naked souls. I try to keep out these most times, but I have on certain occasions gone on and opened up. It is a strange and surreal feeling talking about these things knowing full well that these are people you might never meet again. Perhaps that is the point?
At Bitragunta, we are halted for an extended period of time to let an express and a freight (oh, the ignominy) overtake us. With its wide platforms and old buildings, the station has a charm that recalls older and better times when it was a major stop for steam engines taking on water and fresh crew. The coffee served by the primary food stall is strong, hot and invigorating.
Back inside the coach, the big group is busy hollering and organizing itself to get down at Nellore. I find out from one of the ladies they are heading there for two weddings and hence the large party. As a parting gift and upon enquiring whether I eat meat, I am offered two kheema samosas.
I expect that same chaos of Bapatla to repeat at Nellore, but to my great surprise, everyone detrains without as much of a murmur. The zillion pieces of luggage are unloaded quietly and efficiently and after making sure everyone and everything is safe on the platform, the men get down too. For some inexplicable reason, Nellore turns into a longish halt. Not that I mind of course. I’ve come far for the slow experience, so what’s a few more minutes? More than that, it gives me a chance to reflect on the town itself. Along with my great friend, Shashanka, I’ve spent many days and evenings perched on top of the roof of his family’s house on the banks of the Pennar river. We read and talked and watched the trains clatter by on the old bridge. We spent hours trying to get that perfect night shot of the adjacent temple and its great gopuram. We spent many breakfasting hours eating delicious dosas at Venkataramana Vilas. And of course, many hot afternoons pondering what makes the Honeymoon Special at Babu Cool Drinks – the best goddamn ice-cream sundae on the planet.
The final leg is when the passenger decides to show it too can compete in the speed department. Despite the two stops in between, it races along furiously and deposits me in, surprise, surprise, murderously hot and humid Gudur. Ordinarily, one doesn’t stop by in towns like Gudur. You either have to be masochistic or religiously inclined. I suppose I am of the former variety. For some reason, this town’s dusty, dirty and deplorable condition has attracted me. Also, the Sudhakar Bar that sits opposite the station. It is still far too early for a drink, so I grab some breakfast at one of the numerous carts that line the street just outside the overly ceremonial station gate.
I have let the passenger from Guntur go so as to switch trains to Madras. My eventual goal being reaching my uncle’s house in the suburb of Singaperumal Koil. This was supposed to be trip exploring the nature and nuances of slow travel, but just like on a couple of occasions a day earlier, my determination to continue this way is sapped. Four hours from home is plenty close enough to abandon this adventure and make a dash for it. In this I am aided by the Pinakini Express from Vijaywada. Closer to home I may be, but the train isn’t any less crowded. All its 24 coaches are packed to the rafters and I have a hard time squeezing my way to spot by the door. Standing room only for the next two and a half hours. Deposited on time at Madras Central, I rush towards Park station and a connection to Singaperumal Koil. I feel the heat, humidity, weariness and just abject tiredness on every bone and tissue in my body now.
26 and a half hours and 834 kilometers later, I step inside a home that is cool and welcoming with air-conditioning and tall glasses of spiced buttermilk.
Towards the evening after a delicious thundershower has cooled things a bit and there is a fine breeze blowing across the entire village, I limber up to the railway station and watch as stars slowly take over the sky. Mission accomplished in the truest sense? Had I felt and captured the spirit of Dr. Manning and Prof. Sivaramakrishnan’s travels? Had I felt and captured the deliberate slowness of it all? No.
Why? It is a question I am still pondering.
(This story appears in the book. This version is however edited for a bit more clarity, correct grammar and annoying typos.)