Nagarjuna Sagar tales – Five

S-8 companions

It was around 8:30 pm that I found myself in the new carriage – my pluck and gift of the gab fetching me a berth. There are many who achieve greater things in life than getting lucky with a reservation on a weekend train in Hyderabad Express and not crow. But then I am a writer! Besides whether you climb the Everest or Deep Ocean diving every tale is about what happens to a mind. It is not spectacular events that determine the quality of experience rather how the mind gained newer insights and strengths. What happens to one mind is often the story of mankind. BTW, I have raked in five tales on this simple outing. All the “Nagarjuna Sagar tales” are descriptions of what happened between 2:00 in the afternoon and travelling on a train 6 hours later.

For the first time since boarding the train I felt at ease. No more uncertainty of how I would spend the night. The possibility of lying over newspapers near the wash basin was a real one. Look at it this way: if I had a confirmed ticket at the start of the journey I would have been deprived of these adventures and mental fluctuations.

I took in my new companions in S-8. It resembled more a stag conference with four men in animated conversation. The talk was desultory but they kept pegging away with a verve I found misplaced. There were two mid-twenties men who kept yakking on printers – how European machines are better, about speed, binding etc. They run a printing unit and box office returns. Despite being entrepreneurs that rakes in big moolah they seemed immature and impressionable. Both of them couldn’t wait for the other to finish, jumping over another. Let me hasten to add a perspective here. These guys must be earning at least ten times mine. Then there were two men who joined in intermittently. One was a bald plate and he was a typical Hyderabadi so full of good humour and ready smile. When one of the publishing chap got a metro station wrong from one end of a route in the city, the bald plate took ten minutes in explanation as to why Safilguda does not come in that part of town. There is a certain macho quality to such men. He wasn’t sounding a wee bit nagging school teacher; instead he brought a lot of amiability and humour. You see so many people from Andhra with that ready tongue and even more ready cheer.

The fourth one seemed more a retired government employee. I did tell the publishing bloke,” I have to get down at Nalgonda. Wish there’s a TTE to alert?” The man immediately set an alarm in his mobile. The Telugu have a natural hospitality that frankly I have not chanced across even among the Arabs in the gulf. There is a gene in their DNA that makes for instant connection. In fact I take more pride in my childhood years of growing in Hyderabad than belonging to a conservative (that brings in the Upanishads and Carnatic Music and Bhakti movement literature to my upstairs!) Tamil-Brahmin and orthodox family (my grandfather was the village’s ministering priest!).

But my attention was riveted to what was happening on the upper berth. There was a young couple who were locked in each other hands and eyes. I sat on the middle of the bench, which meant I had intruded myself right into their space of these four men. I was in no mood to converse having exhausted all my wits on the TTE and the army man at S-4. At 9’o clock I got bold enough to say,” I wish to lie down. Hope it will not inconvenience if I pull up the middle berth?”  There were gracious and allowed the berth to be set up. Ten minutes later I said,” Can you please switch off this side of the lights?” I mention these trivial things to show how much my mind had gained confidence after settling the berth issue.You likewise wish for your problems in life to reach definitive solutions!

The lights OFF and I lay on my back with a blanket. The day still would not finish. The sight of this young couple was straight in my eye-view. So far the mind did not register anything but now it was cued as though looking through a microscope. The young ones can steal a kiss or run their hands over one another even in a public place – those are easily condoned. But this was an unending lingering spectacle to a morbid excess.

The man must be in his twenties and the woman looked more a girlfriend than a wife. But how do those tidbits matter? This was getting scandalous. He was whispering in her ears; she took his hands and was directing them over her bosom even as the drape of a saree was bellowing from the fan on the roof. Again that’s fine, who am I to take note? Here I was trying to close my eyes and with an anxiety to be up before 2:30 for my station. So at best I had 4-5 hours for my body to get rest.

I tried very hard to sleep but my eyes kept going towards the couple - it was straight into my view. My head was at the window end and my tall frame meant that I had to curl a little so that others on the passageway do not knock against. The couple was seated on the far end of the upper berth and right in my view. I drifted into sleep and each time the train stopped I peered into my watch for the time. And each time my eyes would dart to this romance heating up. They were biting off one another. The man’s berth was above mine and he only occupied it after midnight – the girl was a young slender thing with mehndi and a plastic bangle too flashy and clasped a large part of her wrist. She also had a smashing ear ring. She was an attractive little thing and man was handsome too. I saw the man with the girl on his lap and caressing every cell of the face.

It did not affect me then. I was too anxious counting stations and waiting for Nalgonda to appear in one of the stops. But this throbbing passion and working fingers did sully the mind. I thought: she is the kind of a woman you would have made a pass and maybe forced yourself. Love-making is a private indoor sport and anything else is simply courting trouble and revulsion; distasteful.

I got down at Nalgonda at 4:00 in the morning. The train was running an hour behind and good as well as I got more time to rest my tired bones. I felt relieved finally landing in Nalgonda overcoming a few odd stubborn walls along the way!