Jab We Met (Mumbai to Vishakhapatnam)

When I boarded the train at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, for home, I was reluctant. It's almost three years since I had not traveled by train, thanks to the low airfare regime, official trips, and reporting assignments, that brought me into the sky mode. For some one with almost eight years of traveling experience in general and sleeper compartments of trains, that runs through most of India including Bihar, (you know why i mentioned this state's name only..with all respect to its residents offcourse) another long train journey shouldn't be that bothering. But it disturbed me at least at that moment when I smelt the train steel. This disconnect happened because I was amazed by the air travel, its glamour and tried forget my humble past. But energy brokers in Manhattan and Singapore worked day and night to screw my happiness...they relied on crude oil to get over the down turn in the equity markets. As crude pries jumped three times in two years, pushing the whole world to a high-cost-proposition (what we call inflation)...now everything is expensive on this earth..not to mention air fares. I was still meandering through my thought maze, when the train stopped at Dadar. My co-passenger in the third-class AC compartment entered. She entered gracefully and asked me to stand up and give her a second to manage her stuff. Her stuff meant a small bag and a her kid, whose eyes were transfixed on me. I didn't know why kids always look at me with amusement...but her mom was not too happy with her kid taking interest in this uncle. I must be looking like a rouge fighter, who just back from some battle. I tried pacify her suspicion by opening a novel I was carrying. I took all the pain to show her the title and authors name till the time she read it and remember it. I know she was reading my book and through which supposedly my mind. Her child, by now I an guess, must not be old that two years was also reading the ook cover with her mother (I guessed). It read 'A distant Window' by Mahashweta Devi.
This one was gifted by Tripta, a visitor to my place, when I was in Ghaghra, the beautiful nondescript settlement in south Jharkhand.
After some investigation it seemed the mother and daughter behaved as if they have realised I'm not the kind of guy they are afraid of. Till Lonavla it was raining and the baby was excited about the rains which she could she through the window. I was shifting my eyes between distant window, the book, and the nearby window for a glance of the beautiful nature. As Konark Express, the train I was traveling in, pierced through the misty Shahyadri hill I was into romantics....the kid by that time realised she's wasting too much of her precious time watching the scenery and not playing. Now the rolly-polly baby was suddenly full of energy and decided to stop my romanticism with nature from the train. She suddenly pounced on me with permission of her mother naturally and shouted "ab bebo khelega", almost with the authority of a general. I didn't have the courage to refuse such a sweet heart and started a pillow fight with her. She won all the time and punched me with her tiny pillow. I was defeated and showed all the gestures of a loser to her...she was all the more excited. I didn't realise, when the night crept in...her mom took her as she was tired. She wanted a session of breast feeding, and shouted 'doodh'. But her young mother was conscious of my presence in front of her. I understood and chose to go to the doors at the end of the compartment.

Friends in my life

Today is friendship day...and like most of us who have given thought to this day's existence in the calender year must have one question in mind...who are the real friends in our lives? So far as my life is concerned...I have my shares of trials and trivia to find out who true friends are. At the foremost its the family. Values that have been inculcated into my life and have kept me afloat through a quarter of a century are obviously gifted by them. Their support or rather influence is always there with me and is like a fixed asset. Through most of my early childhood parents and my sibling have been my best friend. Outside them was there really anyone else?
I think Draupadi, a local fisherman's daughter was a closest friend both for me and my sister outside our parents as long long as we had not been to school.
She's the one who will play the whole day with us when mom and dad will go to work. I remember her teaching us numbers, dancing, and our favorite castle building in sand. She left quite a long lasting impact in our lives. She for first time taught us to become creative.
Draupadi, I last heard was working with her husband for some large farmer in Bathinda district of Punjab. In 2006, during a reporting assignment I even tried to find her out in Saddepur village, near Gidderbah...(address as given by her parents)....but she was not be found...

After Draupadi it was Saroj for me. At the age of five I met him first in the school and we became the best friends. It all started with competition in the school and suddenly started appreciating each other's academic performance. I think he has been instrumental in deciding my future career. In a competitive environment I would always stand first and he followed, ut in mathematics he was 100 from class one to ten. I started with 100 in class one and ended at 75 by class ten. I did really well in every other subject. But losing in mathematics to him made me hate the subject and never strive for it. The result I'm a journalist today.
But remember at least 20 people who were worse in mathematics than me in school are either --techies, professors or managers --but all in the field information technology.
As expected Saroj is a techie too and lives in amchi Mumbai.
In intermediate days i had no friends from college. I was in the best science college in my state and though I was open to friendship no one else was. For everybody it was IIT-JEE or cracking some state level engineering or medical entrance.
This was the time when my female language teacher in the science college became my best friend. This woman was feeling out of place in this cutthroat island of IIT dreamers and equally fierce know-all science professors. In the period of two years we had discussed it all. The bad ones like the boring atmosphere, the fear of dreaming surroundings, her domineering science counterparts and the deadly subject mathematics. The most illogioal of all subjets. Where everything is based on 'let us assume.' The demons --Calculus and Coordinate geometry-- simply sucked.
She was like an oasis for me in that desert:) Here my friendship chapter ended in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar. The language teacher continues to teach in the same college.
At 17, when I entered University of Allahabad in the true North Indian city, I discovered a whole new world of experience. The people here were too different from my earlier notion. I feared to have any friends here primarily because of severe ragging during the first year. Later I realized the social fabric here is torn unlike in Orissa. Caste and religion undertones dictated relationships to great extent. I was not to accept this. My best friends here were all Keralite Christian guys and girls. I just loved their temperament. Joshua, Edwin, Jincy, Sommy, Parthiva and many more names. All 44 in my batch were like great people. Being in the Christmas chorus, evangelicals...I liked every moment with them.
Bidhos Paul from Koraput, - a district whose per capita income is as low as Ethiopia -is another man who had been a great friend and philosopher in my life. Bidhos today works in rural development projects in interior tribal districts bordering Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.
Javed Jan from Kasmir and Junwa from Burma were two more.
After Allahabad came Banaras Hindu University. Here I had encountered brilliant people but simpletons. Here I like the Univeristy and its lirary the most. The Yoga classes, the evenings on the banks of Ganges. The city itself was my best friend this time. It changed me internally for sure. I nearly discovered my soul here. Friends who made my days here were Amit Kanaujia and Tripurai Sharma..both have been very influential. Whole dairy technology batch, laboratory, library and hostel staff, my Yoga guru. Islam barber, Bihariji chaiwale. Dr Prabha Singh, the law professor, Swetlana, the russian tourist were a part of my life here.