12401: Magadh Express-MZP to NDLS

Erebos starts for home today; which brings us to our start from Mirzapur aboard that medieval Magadh Express, replete with mysterial powers of keeping its floorboards and sidewalls linked to each other.
The last day dawned as all other days with one minuscule difference: our supervisor left on an early train that morning so he could be on time for a very important seminar that we would attend upon our return (we did attend it; I even have a picture of me dozing away very seriously in a corner). This meant that we went about our last day together unimpeded by the mellowest remonstration.

The more industrious ones were going about the place hunting down last bits of soap, paper towels and shampoo sachets with worried, I-think-someone-stole-the-drop-of-shampoo-I-left-by-the-sink looks on their faces. The true busybodies came along directing everyone to clean their rooms and the courtyard. They were joined in their chorus by Medussa, lurking overhead; the beast never came to say Goodbye.

Guessing correctly that very soon I will be asked to pitch in with a cruddy broomstick, I called an emergency Cartel meeting. It was a close shave, but we clambered out the doors and into an autorickshaw, our ears still ringing with T's shrill hoots of "come back and touch something disgusting" or words to that effect. Soon the four of us and B found ourselves safe, if a little jarred on the banks of the serene evening Ganges.

We savored the breeze, the setting Sun, the sandstone steps and its a good thing that we partook in this luxury in light of the pandemonium that followed. We took a boat on the Ganges, then we each insisted on taking over the oars by turns. Our boatman seemed amused, then resigned himself to looking at the far away horizon. Perchance he too had a box of memories to open and peek at, the moments right before twilight being the perfect time for such reminisces; or perhaps he was thinking how to swim to the shore in case these  batty kids wrecked his boat...

Evening had transitioned noiselessly into night by the time we awoke to the fact that our train was scheduled to leave exactly in two hours and B. and S. who had been assigned the responsibility of calling the magical magics were half an hour away from the nearest autorickshaw and I had twisted the truth about finishing my packing the night before. Hereon on, things proceeded as, well, brouhaha is a word that comes to mind.

We managed to get back to Medussa's lair without injury, S and B rushed back out as soon as we'd reached  in search of the mystic magics. When they arrived and were parked next to the pyramid of luggage, they seemed very small and insignificant. When I am stressed I tend to become philosophical so  I couldn't help but draw comparisons with our own inconsequentiality in the grand scheme of things. While I was having this epiphany, K. was dragging out her suitcase, my suitcase, two sleeping bags and a big bag of garbage; when I told her she complimented me on my insight and told me to get out of everyone's way. Suitcases and people (including those held by strings, I'll leave the rest to fertile imaginations) were piled on higgledy-piggledy and we were off. We went like the Dothraki tribe; the skilled/ strong men and pretty women got places inside the they-must-have-shrunk-since-the-last-time magics and others trailed along on foot through the Muddy Brown Waste-the 5 minute stretch from our burrow of 15 days to the railway station.
And what should we find there, but a total blackout. Like I said before, in Greek theater, scenes that would evoke great pathos in the audience were enacted off-stage... I will therefore leave it to your sympathies to envisage what happens when 30 people, demented by black-outs and mosquitoes have to scamper into the deep depths of dark vans and sort and collect 70 pieces of luggage, most of them threatening to burst open at the seams.
Said pieces of luggage were retrieved and cataloged, again in the awkward presence of curious strangers, pictures were taken to commemorate the moment and we found ourselves on the platform once more. Our supervisor, B and the mysterious voice that speaks on the public announcement system had all cautioned us against pick-pockets. The more anxious ones, therefore, kept jumping at shadows and seeing shady characters in trench coats with a hooks for hands in every corner.

Mirzapur makes quite a dough from its glass bangles and R, during her stay must have been responsible for about half of that. Against our better judgement, she put these, some 40 dozens of bangles in a cloth bag, nestled among towels and such like. You should also know that her backpack weighed more than her and apparently she had failed to account for gravity when she packed for the trip. Given this, it surprised no one when she found herself unable to board the train, with the bangle-bag in one hand and the non-confidence-inspiring door handle of Magadh Express in the other. Combine this with the fact that Magadh Express stops for only 5 minutes in Mirzapur and you will understand why the precious bag fell through the gap and under the train while S and K were using their combined force to hurl R into the train. The proprietor of the little place where we used to have our meals had very sweetly come to drop us off at the station. Seeing the chaos happening in front of the door, he came running and actually managed to retrieve the bag. Life and limb hanging by thread, we finally managed to get onto the train while yelling profuse thank-yous to the proprietor and other kind strangers. About 5 dozen of the bangles were in smithereens, the rest pulled through.

I haven't said this before, but there used to be a secret stash of green apple vodka behind a broken door-frame among noxious rags and spindly spiders. This had originally been put in place to help us live out dark times like checking the 366th verb for the 366th time and to observe our duties as keepers of the door. As it was, lively conversation, coke, bread and chips that looked like sections of a pipe got us through most nights. This meant that quite a bit of the supply still remained. This was carefully picked up and packed by B in midst of all the chaos, and for that we were profoundly grateful. A friend of ours had arranged for delectable kebabs to be delivered on the train when it stopped at Aligarh-that haven of kebabs and other Mughlai delicacies. These were had, followed by a swig each from the remaining stash (all this in complete and enveloping darkness, so as not to disturb others and more importantly to not let a word of this reach our supervisor who had innocent faith in us). The rest of the night passed without incident with occasional laments from R who had refused a soothing drink for her injured soul.

All too soon, the fortnight had passed and we were back amongst functioning loos and showers that actually worked. Still, for a time, K and I really missed washing our hair in the open courtyard while being yelled at by the Gorgon and her fiend. We also missed the little cups of very sweet tea in the morning, frisking our lunch for the more appetizing bits of food, eating boiled eggs that smelled like odomos and most of all, the poorly concealed gales of laughter as we talked and bitched while R drifted off with her back against the wall.

How time slips away...when you look back, it sits just out of your reach...tantalizing...just twinkling away...

For Bouncy

This one is for Bouncy, K, S, R and everyone who has ever had or ever hopes to have a dog. There is no love greater than that between you and your puppy...Everyone else has a reason to love you and for everyone there is that one thing that will make them hate you, or leave you. Only your puppy loves you without rhyme or reason, for good or for bad, in sickness and in health, with all his heart and all his soul.

We met Bouncy one rainy afternoon in September, 2011. We had our first glimpse of him as we turned the corner; he was tentatively checking the gate with his nose. This was a steady and relentless pursuit of his. Every now and then he would check to see if anyone was looking, then gently push the gate with his weeny little snout. And by God, every now and then, his optimism would pay; the gate would be unfastened and off he would go. We were witnesses to quite a number of Bouncy's frequent bids for the great big world outside. There was little use running after him and so K would just unlock her car. At this he would prick up his funny, floppy ears and come bouncing back straight into the car.
When we first met him, he came up, gave us a hearty sniff of approval and didn't leave our sides for the rest of the afternoon. Bouncy had had his tail docked even before he came home to K, so as other dogs wag their tails, he would wag his teensy little butt. And when sometimes S would hold his butt still, he would keep wagging the little stump of his tail with continued enthusiasm and vigor...

Bouncy was part of every all-nighter we ever had at K's place. Whenever there were a lot of people, he would run around, trying to sniff everyone, know everyone and play with everyone, and chase some lizards, time permitting. I remember one time when K and I were cooking in the kitchen and he and Shadow were sitting right outside, heads tilted in frank curiosity because obviously, they weren't allowed inside. I saw Bouncy slowly inch his paw across the line that divides the dining room from the kitchen. Unfortunately, K. noticed and whipped around, ladle in hand and said 'Why is there a paw?' He gave a guilty start and then quickly pulled his paw back. Then he gave us such a wounded look that it was all we could do to not pick him up and bring him into the kitchen. So, instead we stopped cooking and spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch in front of the TV cuddling Bouncy between us.

Bouncy's attempts at adventure were determined and persistent. The perils of these became apparent one night when he ran away from us as we were walking him. Shadow ran after him and he made his appearance a few minutes later, looking disgruntled, straining against the leash that was now securely in Shadow's mouth. K, meanwhile had become infuriated with worry and he got an earful. When we went back inside and sat on the couch, he came over to my side and refused to talk to K for the next few hours. He fell asleep and all seemed forgiven and forgotten the next morning, especially as he took another shot at running away again as soon as we opened the gate to take him out for his morning constitutionals.

Bouncy seemed to especially enjoy sleeping all curled up in a coma on S's lap. S wouldn't move all night, so as to not disturb him and Bouncy would go on sleeping, snoring slightly and creating an ever increasing drool pool. In this respect, he was a lot like me. He would do this on nights when K and S wanted to watch cheesy Bollywood movies; so there we would be, Bouncy on S's lap and me sprawled on the sofa, snoring and drooling in harmony.

K used to put Bouncy on a leash and then take him and Shadow for a walk every morning; Shadow can walk without supervision, he is not easily excited... But after a particularly long night, sometimes K would leash Shadow instead of Bouncy and open the gate. On such occasions, Bouncy wouldn't run away immediately. He would spend a few seconds staring between the gate and K's face with an expression that said, "Really???" As soon as K made the slightest move to grab his collar, he would shoot out the gate. And then the same trick with the car would have to be repeated.

Over the years, Bouncy had quite a number of gastrocolic adventures including the time he ate about 70 balloons. K had just bought the packet for the annual Farewell party decorations and kept it on her table. She stepped out for a minute and when she returned, the packet was nowhere to be found and Bouncy was sitting under her table looking contended, if a little confused with the taste and texture. For the next 10 days, K had to count the balloons as they exited Bouncy, morning and evening.
Another time, he killed a rat, then decided he didn't want to eat it and instead respectfully offered it at K's feet. Imagine his consternation, when instead of a pat and a treat, K. jumped up on her chair and in the general sense of the term, had a fit.
Bouncy also had this thing where he would pick up something to eat, decide he didn't like it after all and plop it back down. He would return in a while, pick it up again, decide he definitely didn't like and plop it down again. He would then leave said slobbery object on the floor for K to dispose off. Sometimes Shadow would  come along and oblige by eating Bouncy's reject before any of us could stop him.

One of the funniest things about Bouncy was that he was really scared of this air-gun K had. You just had to pick it up, point it at him and say "hands up!". He would sidle under a table and look like he would give anything to have hands so he could put them up.

Our stories, adventures and memories with Bouncy are many. Whenever we would spend a night at K's, we would know that we would be woken up in the morning with Bouncy staring right into our eyes in spirit of great investigation, wagging his butt so hard, it might just fall off...
Bouncy was loved by everyone he ever met. And we all are the luckiest for having been friends with him.    

Cons, schemes and keepers of the door

And so we get here... By this time we are somewhere midway on the field-trip timeline. Let me then introduce that diabolical duo-their coming was predicted by the oracle at Delphi-the mean, the nefarious, the archetypes of  hypocrisy-D. and A.
D. was nice, bright, always decently dressed, not a stitch out of place, cognizant of womanly manners, pristine (no carnality before the blessed state here)-in short an apotheosis of what every woman like me dreads becoming and every father hopes that his daughter is. Oh and also, she was a teetotaler-so there you go...
D. had been in a snowy, immaculate relationship for 6 years when this story opens ( I'm guessing that was the problem) and for 1 and 1/2 years we thought she was perfectly happy though not completely awake to the perils and challenges of a not-so-unblemished relationship.
A. was one of those men who you look at and you just know- prohibitionist (and not just about alcohol <nudge, nudge, wink, wink>), gets up in the morning and bathes in cold water, then spends a couple of hours on inane rituals because Mama-said-so and turns up for class with hair parted down the middle as if with a straight ruler; in short the kind of person you cannot look at for a few seconds before being overcome with the urge to give him a wedgie. He was also a vegetarian and one year our senior.
This not-inappreciable blemish on humanity was chosen by our supervisor as one of our chaperons; he would soon come to lament this rash decision. In fact, by the closing of the fortnight he would wish he had never even allowed A. into the program, let alone suffer him through six semesters.
A, of course had never had a girlfriend (who can blame the girls!),despite posting pictures of himself posing in a frazzled, slightly yellow undershirt on Facebook, I might add.
D. is not un-comely and to A's deprived state she must have looked nothing short of angelic. The first hint of sparks were observed in the rattling, drafty compartments of Magadh Express when D. transformed into a vulnerable damsel in distress, alone at the mercy of highwaymen, without hat or purse or a knight to call her own and informed us almost apologetically that she was mortally afraid of heights, even the 5 feet that separated her assigned bunk from that medieval plank that passed for a floor on Magadh Express. As it is, it did not make much of a difference which bunk you were on when the ability of the planks to remain attached to the rest of the train was chancy at best.
She was demurely suggesting spending the night sitting at the feet of another when A. rode in gallantly with the offer of his lower bunk so she could get the beauty sleep she so needed. D. of course conceded with a coy little head-tilt and gave A. a long, slow glance full of promises before drifting off to sleep. A. didn't sleep that night, instead he patrolled the 50 meters between the lavatories, chin up, chest out.
D's journey in woes and tribulations continued much to the delight of A's misplaced sense of chivalry and our frank amusement. Sure, the twisted ankle because of P. and the beast on the threshold was genuine enough, so you might say A's procurement of a raised plank on which D could sit and wash her dirty laundry in public (Oh, pun very much intended) was also legit enough. But the maiden seemed weighed down by malaise more and more everyday.
Note here that D seemingly being the apotheosis of immaculate womanhood, etc, etc had led us to believe she was very much in love and neck-deep in commitment.
You can therefore imagine our astonishment followed quickly by regalement when on our very first day on the field D. swooned in the throes of a migraine and spent nearly an hour resting in A's strong arms; this in a very crowded and rickety magical Magic with 20 pairs of eyes looking (in case of the prudes, fleeting glimpses) and 20 pairs of ears straining to catch every whisper.
Over the next few days, D. and A. seemed happily oblivious to the fact that the most stolid of us had cottoned on to their covert little affaire, if you will. Not that they tried to hide it, really; they just seemed to have implicit faith on the burdens and self-absorption of modern times that allegedly make people blind to what other people are doing and also render them incapable of comprehending what they see. Which just goes to show how unreliable modern times are; for we saw and we comprehended.
And as a result of this seeing and comprehending, focus shifted from K. and N. who had just started dating to these, more detracting plains. So, in a way, D. totally stole K.'s thunder. I will avenge you yet, K...
Things came to a pass one night when our Supervisor walked in on them;okay, so he was just walking, the fact that he walked in was because they were ahem... 'sitting on a tree' right in middle of the passage that led from the rooms to the broom cupboard we called a bathroom.
He asked us what their relationship status was like outside the classroom and we (okay, I) expeditiously apprised him of D's purported commitment and the details of her 6 year old relationship(there weren't many details given the squeaky cleanness of said relationship). At this point, (if you haven't guessed so already) yours truly comes out as the antagonist in this tale. In my defense and despite my propensity for sardonic roles, what happened next was decreed long before my awakening to my true potential as harbinger of deliciously scandalous times.
Our supervisor listened, then gave a resigned sort of sigh and said that he wished they had held back until the trip was over and their problems were somebody else's.
Around the time we are in this story, the haze was looming ever closer and then one morning the storm broke loose...
D and A disappeared for over 4 hours and left their cellphones behind. Our supervisor went berserk and search teams were formed, ready for dispatch. We tried to point out the futility of these operations and told people to be happy for D and A. After all, their ship had finally sailed, if you catch my drift. Those not of our sunny disposition remained un-amused.
One can understand our Supervisor's departure from his usually genial inclinations; as I have said before D was the daughter every father wanted, including her own and I think our Supervisor feared the repercussions should the union prove to be blessed.
For the rest, their lack of general good cheer can be attributed to a general lack of action for a fortnight. But I am not selfish like all others, I was happy for them and also I was really enjoying sitting back and watching the fireworks. Some beer and popcorn would have absolutely sealed the golden pyramid atop our joyous obelisk, but one can't have it all in life... So we reconciled ourselves to the chips and coke at hand and the gossip continued with renewed vigor well past the wee hours. You see, around this time we had started running out of things and people to bitch about and D and A breathed fresh live into our grapevine; which had been the point to begin with.
Anyway, D and A turned up sometime before lunch and then spent an hour ensconced in a room with our Supervisor while we took turns listening outside. There isn't much to say here, he basically told them to cool it till we got back home. After that he didn't give, well he didn't give anything...
A few days later we were sitting on the stairs that led to the terrace (beast and hag were nowhere to be seen, probably napping). We were just out of sight of D and A and their group of confederates and we heard them   gathering downstairs and conniving about a secret trip to Varanasi.
It goes without saying that we stayed quiet as mice (as someone who has had mice living in her drawers, I assure you they are not quiet at all) and just took it all in.
Now this trip had already been proposed and rejected (a) due to lack of funds and (b) because Shivratri was upon us and Varanasi at this time is reduced to a drunken glob of tottering masses. It seemed although that this had done nothing to deter D and A's determination to prove that they were in the real thing and not just slaves to baser instincts. They also seemed to have accumulated a bunch of allies all of who had a dead resolve to be in Varanasi on Shivratri ; a resolve born of manic devotion. This assemblage of geniuses were planning to take a lone boat along the vast expanse of the Ganges in the misty haze of 4 o'clock in the morning. I don't know what their plan was for explanations when they returned or for any chance of obtaining their degrees.
Sometimes I wish we had let them go, but I thought it would be more fun to tell our supervisor. He seemed almost too tired to be perturbed; he called the coven to his room and told them that if they went forward with their plans, he would be forced to revoke their degrees. As they came out, a dejected sight, they came face-to-face with us. There was a very pregnant pause and then they filed past us and went to bed.
After this, things seemed to have reached an impasse. We stopped talking to them, they started throwing us burning looks of pure, unadulterated hatred. Friends became enemies and everything just blew down in flames.
Even after this episode, we were not entirely sure that they had completely abandoned their carefully planned undertaking. So, we took to sitting in front of the main door every night till the cock crowed, thus becoming the keepers of the door. We all heard hurried whispers and scurrying footsteps sometime or the other but we held our positions as the self-elected Night's Watch, ready and well-appointed with tubes of odomos, bags of chips and occasionally and for reasons unknown, boiled eggs...We could have made a fortune going into private security together...
For those of you wondering what became of D. and A., well D moved away to another University after this. I hear A also intends to move there soon. D hasn't broken up with her beau of six years either. Both A and aforesaid beau attended our graduation and farewell together; so I guess an amicable time-sharing settlement has been reached.

  

The One that is Special...

One feels that one has been talking about the brewing storm a lot in the past few posts. Hints have been dropped, insinuations have been leveled ..Lets then talk about something else. Something else that was brewing just around this time and in this very place.

This one is special. This one is for our little cartel and N for he didn't know it then, but soon he would join this syndicate of, well, willful devils, if you will.
It all started when N. and K. connected on that cellphone with the strange device: Blackberry. N. at this time was in a kingdom far far away, but they talked and they talked and then they talked some more. Skype entered the picture and soon they were transported to the land inhabited by those in love...What happens in those acres is between the dwellers and in case of the women, their friends, because women tell each other everything...
But these maidenly transgressions came later, sometime in mid-January while N. entered our lives one fine, wintry morning in early January that year. He had of course entered K.'s life some time ago, but we found out after a particularly perplexing lecture in the Philosophy department.  
We had just endured an hour of an eccentric-looking bloke rambling on about knowledge of knowledge of knowledge...you get my drift; and I suppose he had suffered 5 nitwits sitting in front of him with boiled-fish eyes and very happy expressions on their faces as they gazed into vacant space...I think most of us were thinking what we would be do if chicken drumsticks were to suddenly appear on the professor's desk, except the vegetarians who must have been thinking about, hmm, whatever vegetarians think about...
K. tried a little reticence in the beginning, but my willfulness together with the fact that we are women means that by the time January ended, I was all caught up. I had to throw some details about S. and me under the dainty, lady-like bus that is feminine curiosity; but I caught up alright. Sorry, S. and N...

By the time we got to Mirzapur, K. was nicely settled in aforementioned meadows of Aphrodite. Which meant that the two weeks of separation from high speed wi-fi or for that matter any speed wi-fi or cable was decidedly biting.
Over the next few days K and N would incur phone bills which when put together would exceed what we paid for, you know, rent, food, that sort of thing...I remember the arrival of that momentous bill with the words 'Envelope 1 of 2' on it one rainy afternoon.
 At the time few outside our group knew N by name. So, naturally, given that K used to spend all her waking hours including those in the loo (keeping in mind the great and very real potential for personal injury to herself or her phone or both), N came to be known as Blackberry; a burden he would carry for a long long time; in fact, I think our supervisor still calls him that.
Every night, K. would sit inside a cupboard inhabited solely by spiders and whisper that which all worshipers of Isis know in between mouthfuls of what she sincerely hoped was only cobwebs and dust.
In the beginning K would just sit in the courtyard or the feared stairs up to Medusa and her Beast, but these austerity measures were imposed after one night when Z. messaged us (messaged us, mind you, when lying only about 6 feet away from us) that and I quote her "you guys are really being too loud". Therefore, the cupboard with the flourishing family of spiders.
One day it struck me that my wi-fi data card might work somewhere within the house and even though it didn't have a lot of credit, it might ease the agony of these sundered souls in that they would at least be able to gaze at each others visages (I love the thesaurus!!!).
Our plans were quickly rendered apart by the shrill call of 'Tappal' hooting and demanding that I give my data card to her too so she could talk to, well to her paramour, if you will. This paramour had confessed to her almost  immediately after they had started meeting in clandestine alleys and shadowy trees (because that is just the kind of people they were) that he had polycystic kidney disease and only a few months to live. This was about 6 years ago. I feel for the guy, I think he approximated the kind of mess he had gotten into pretty early on and wanted out before getting sucked down any farther. But T just offered him her own kidney. That and the fact that he never filed a restraining order and stuck around for 6 whole years makes one wonder if his 'business' was only a front. One only hopes that wherever T is today, her lung capacity has diminished and both her kidneys are still secure within her own body.    
As I was saying before I went off this tangent, T's shrieks effectively ruined K and N's skype date. N still refers to her as the girl who screeched "mujhe bi baat kalni he"(another diabetic rendition of "I wanna talk too") right when he was finally seeing K after more than a week. And K. would have given her the laptop if only from mercy for our eardrums except that neither T nor her genius of a boyfriend (in their infinite acumen if I may add) had accounts on any kind of service that facilitates web chat.As it is, if looks and thoughts could kill, T would have been buried right there, three times over.

K used to stay up most of night talking to N and I used to keep her company because I'm like an owl that way (I can't say if owls are good company cute as they are, I'm talking about their nocturnal habits). Then one day, this was a few days before Shivratri which is very big in UP; its big because in the preceding weeks everyone drinks that popular drink bhaang with the diligence of true devotees. This means that during this time every year, everyone is drunk; drunk is actually an understatement, bhaang produces very interesting effects in the most seasoned tippler. It is a fantastic concoction of cannabis leaves, milk, sugar, almonds, fennel, poppy seeds and other delectable spices and as anyone who has ever been raised in UP will tell you, absolutely potent.
And this was the drink served to us on that day by our hosts all of who were ardent bhaang enthusiasts. Now, I have been a UP-ite for only one generation, mine. But S. has genes steeped in the color and culture of UP and more importantly more common sense than most of us; and yet we all had at least a glass each of bhaang against his better counsels. What followed was bedlam.
Not to go into ghastly details, we do not know to this day if a friend of ours who had sailed through 17 glasses, did or did not pee on our bed.
One effect of bhaang is that it is perhaps one of the most powerful soporifics available to man. So by the time evening descended, it was all we could do to not fall asleep in our dinner pails. Even now, I do not remember how we made the walk back home from the dhaba. Oh, and bhaang makes you crave sugar with a deranged frenzy. So I remember chocolates, lots and lots of chocolates.
Anyway, back home K was doing her best to string words together and say something that has some sort of semantic value to N. Having failed, she came to our room where S, R, B and I were sitting with stupid, stoned smiles on all our faces (except S who had none of the bhaang). I am told I had instant coffee powder smeared around my lips because in my bombed state it had seemed like a good idea to eat raw coffee powder to alleviate my symptoms.
K stumbled into the room and demanded, "Where's the coke?" (baked as we were 'coke' here refers to 'coca-cola'). I told her in what I thought was a soothing voice that we didn't have any. Her eyes seemed to widen and she said "But I need it". It was very Monica asking Rachel for a 100 bucks after loosing all her money in unwise speculations (for those of you who do not remember, Friends Season 2 Episode 21 'The One with the Bullies').
A couple of people were dispatched on the quest for coke at 11 PM (these people were going out anyway to counter their highs with more highs). A bottle of Thumbs-Up was brought and had by K. But she fell asleep anyway.

K and N had many good times together, also some not so good.
But N banded with the band... I was waiting for the right time to introduce him here and so HERE HE IS... Lightening...thunder... the fog clears and voila...
He is one of us...
Through these posts, I hope N has come to know how we came to be who we were when we met him (we are not insane, our mothers had us tested) :D

The days that followed...

In the days that followed, truths were revealed, rumors were started, gossip flowed and general all-round fun was had by all. The first few days were unusually peaceful, but looking back I guess it was the calm before a storm. And what a storm it was...Don't get me wrong, I was partly responsible for starting it and we all enjoyed the ample gossip it furnished. But we are getting ahead of ourselves...

The first thing Z. and D. (Note her character carefully as D. would later be one of the main reactants of the chain reaction that stunned us all)  did upon arrival was to hang a bed-sheet that had at one time been white but had clearly endured the rigors of harsh detergents and generations of greasy heads on the archway that separated the courtyard and the girls' rooms from those of the boys. This clearly was a vexation for the poor boys and our poor, sweet, uncomplaining supervisor because while the girls' side has something resembling a chamber pot and a bathroom (albeit with creepy, crawling red worms of some kind) with a nice big courtyard for causes of communal cleanliness, the boys had a tiny sliver behind a broom cupboard with red walls, a door that wouldn't close, a chamber pot from the good old days of yore and was evidently a happy home to a family of rodents.
K. and I insisted that the boys be allowed at least visitation rights to the bathroom; it seemed downright cruel to tell someone to go do their business in a dark room, on a pot that is ready to crumble as the rodents thoughtfully serenade them in the background. Z., D. and T. were very reluctant to begin with, apparently such a plan would hinder their pleasant plans of washing their dirty laundry very publicly. A struggle of wills ensued, but as you might have guessed, K. and I are willful women...A compromise was reached wherein the boys were allowed a couple of hours of privacy every morning for a communal bath in the courtyard and they could visit the pot as often as they wished to (actually nobody really wished to use that pot, lets say as often as they needed to).
S. of course enjoyed extended visitation rights, because, you guessed it again...I am a willful woman. He also got to bathe in the privacy of a bathroom every evening.
Every morning before the boys' hours, Z., D. and T. would collect their...er...sensitive and rather too sensible laundry and hurry into their rooms looking like frightened gazelles. Ah, but when gazelles turn into vixens...but again, we get ahead of ourselves...
They were happy days. Every morning D. and P. (P. was a rather sweet and innocent, at least at this point we thought she was innocent, girl) would climb up the stairs, brave the depraved woman and degenerate dog and turn on the water pipes. One morning, P. reached the top of the stairs first only to find herself staring at the dog with the fiendish eyes. He barked, she yelped and ran down the stairs upsetting D. in the process.  D. twisted her ankle with the result that from that day on, S., K., R. or yours truly had to go up and turn on the water because only we love dogs so much that even that brute did not scare us. To be honest, I think we were more scared of meeting the hag from Eerie-land than the dog which seemed more like a victim than a perpetrator. Sure, he was a mean looking thing, but then again we hadn't tried looking at the Gorgon day-in and day-out for 6 or 7 dog years (that's close to 50 human years!).
 The meals were another story...On day one, a little dhaba was found that agreed to feed 30 very hungry people twice a day for the very reasonable price of Rs. 40 per person per meal. This reasonable price, however, came with its own price...While the proprietor was very sweet and always ready with a smile, the dal, aloo bharta and roti got real old real soon. 5 days in, the four of us started going out for every meal; even if it meant having samosas dripping with oil and jalebis  dripping with syrup at 8.00 in the morning. Truth be told, it was a good break from our typical breakfast of nothing or at most a slice of toast.
 Our culinary adventures should also get honorable mention, and they would...soon...

Life fell into a nice routine. Get up, get ready, consume the calories, do some work, eat some more, bathe, eat some more, gossip till 3.00 AM while eating some more and giving the mosquitos something to feed on as well and then blissful sleep.
The sleeping also deserves honorable mention, and so it shall...
So many honorable and some not-so-honorable things to mention... Ah, patience...it will happen yet :)

Day one: of new turfs and surf

We had left off the last post when Day 1 had officially begun. Magadh Express reached our destination at about 9.00 and for two minutes it was utter lunacy to get off the train, get our luggage off the train, take pictures of us getting off the train, take pictures of the departing train and take pictures of taking pictures of the departing train; all done by 9.02...In 15 days 40 GB of pictures were taken with an assortment of cameras, cellphones, even webcams.

9.15 saw 30 people with tousled hair and about 70 pieces of luggage standing outside the little station called Mirzapur and inviting sniggers, stares and rudeness-riddled-curiosity from onlookers. After what felt like eternity, our supervisor and B. came back with 3 Magics: vans by Tata that claim to magically accommodate 12 people and are astonishingly uncomfortable.
Finally, after half an hour of bellowing, yelling and struggling with porcine people and beefy luggage, we were off (with B. hanging on to dear life perched precariously on a handle and hanging out of a window; happens when you have portly friends such as ourselves) to the house we were all to invade for the next 15 days. And just as a P.S., T was still hooting shrilly for sheer joy...

Within minutes of liberation from the magical Magics, the house was overrun. What had seemed from a distance to be a comfortably big house seemed to shrink and contract from our mere touch and soon what had ostensibly been a large courtyard was littered with luggage that had apparently been neighborly and multiplied en route from the station.

K., R., Z. and I shared a room with a very sweet girl who was gentle and harmless to the point of being apologetic, much like a human milk-dud. This suited us well, spear-welding devils as we were. T barreled into her room, hopped around the bit (still hooting) and then started cleaning the mattresses and mats with unbarred frenzy and a manic glint in her eyes. I sat lauding (K. R. Z. and gentle girl were tidying our room) and pitying T's poor, peace-loving roommates who frankly appeared torn between being scared and fighting the urge to impale T. on her own broom.     

Meanwhile S. and B. had gone out on a knightly quest for finding buckets and pipes so damsels and lesser knights could have a wash. Our part of the house had no taps or things and our only option to obtain water was to attach a pipe to a tap situated on top floor of the house whose access and use were controlled by a very aggressive dog and an old woman who could shame the most vicious spitting cobra in bad temper and verbal barrage, respectively. Getting past this very irascible dog and very territorial woman for water would soon become part of our daily struggle for existence.

My last post mentioned a mate of ours who had played fast and loose with the boundaries of acceptable social conduct. Well, five minutes into our new surroundings, she informed us that she had forgotten the combination to her suitcase lock. Many solutions were suggested including educated guesswork and buying new clothes. Eventually someone had the sense to suggest cutting around the lock. This led to another few minutes looking for a knife or a blade. At last a kukri of sorts was procured which seemed illegal and powerful enough to cleave meat and bone and the suitcase was ripped open. This suitcase would later have to be tied with string and transported back aboard the train on the return journey.

As you can tell, water was scarce and precious. This matey then went for a wash and kept asking for more water in a piteous moan. When four buckets had been passed and consumed, we bluntly refused to give her anymore. She moaned some more, but eventually came out looking much as she had going in. This brought about insinuations that she was in fact using detergent of the stronger variety (surf, if you will) rather than soap to bathe. Nobody asked her and she told no one, so we would never know... This incident however led to new rules being made about rationing of water. Everyone was rationed one bucket each, every morning and evening.

Over the next few days, more rules would be made, even more would be broken and tempers would be tested. But then again, that is why I am writing these posts and reliving that fortnight...

12402: Magadh Express

The last post had left me,S., K., B., another friend and headless-chicken classmate standing in front of the railway station in good time for the train. The mood was chipper, the conversation lively and the air thick with high-fives and fist-bumps.
More people were trickling in every minute, some of them accompanied by parents. Moving, right? That your parents/ guardians should master evening traffic, push past sweaty crowds and board the train with your luggage holding onto very questionable door handles of the medieval Magadh Express, just to kiss you goodbye and wish you good luck. All we had gotten from our parents were nonchalant goodbyes and dont-lean-and-fall-out-of-the-trains. Well, fervent parents and fervid goodbyes are not necessarily a good thing as we would painfully find out in the next quarter of an hour.

Needless to say, stirring farewells were bid, tears were shed, we were told by tearful parents to take care of their little angels ('cause, you guessed it, we look like spear-carrying, giant, horned devils) and we were off...

That was one fun night...The four of us, B. and the friend who had come with us from my hostel (the one  who had and still has a head), lets call her Z.(this friend plays a minor role later into the fortnight) had a set of seats to ourselves. The downside, one little angel was conferred to us by her doting father. It interesting to note here that so doting was her father that initially he summarily refused to let her go on the trip (even though this would mean that she would be disqualified from her degree). Then he talked to our supervisor and agreed, though he insisted on coming with us. Eventually he seemed to resign everything to a higher power and to our good sense because his little princess had none.

Now that little angel has been introduced, I'm going to assign her the letter 'T'. This is short for 'tappal' which is a tortuously sweet take on the word 'chappal' (slippers). Why, you ask, did we so cruelly name this little lute-carrying cherub? Because at a later date when she couldn't find her rhinestone encrusted slippers that went with her similarly adorned clothes (such apt wear for a night journey on a train) she screeched 'meli tappal kahan he' (a diabetically distorted version of 'where are my slippers'). This then became our catchphrase for her; R's imitation of that screech is legendary, I have it on video. Anyway, hence the 'T'.

2 minutes into the journey T climbed to the top bunk. Then she got hungry. Now, T. in her profound acumen and foresight had packed all her belongings in one big bag and stowed it under our seats. This meant that whenever she got hungry or thirsty or wanted to buy all the knick-knacks that vendors bring on trains, one of us would have to pull out her 10-stone bag, get her big box of food, inconveniently large canteen of water or uncommonly fat wallet, hand said item to her and then stow her bag away. She kept yelling shrilly for most of the journey, probably because of her jubilation at finally getting away from her fond father for 15 days.

That night R. slept with a smile on her face. We think it was because she was dreaming of new and wondrous ways of drowning or in other fiendish ways getting rid of T.

S. K. and I played cards all night; we were joined by different people at different hours to complete the set of four. And one point there were 5 of us, so S and I played as a hermaphroditic blob... It was a good night; friends, cards, chips and T. hooting shrilly in the background.

The next morning dawned foggy and crispy. I have a picture of K. coming back from the restroom, nose dripping wet (I strongly suspect that a few drops fell into R.'s cuppa joe). We all had our morning teas and then it was time for everyone's morning constitutionals. This was an exercise in olfactory fortitude and at one point plastic bottles were involved. One of our mates seemed to have left both her sense of smell and her sense of acceptable social conduct at home. She stood in front of the lavatory, calmly cleaning her braces and when she was done, promptly handed her brace-brush to T who stood there clutching it, looking petrified; perhaps it was the smell or perhaps the knowledge that one is holding something, that a few seconds ago was being forced into impossible gaps in another person's braces.

Despite the grungy conditions, the rattling windows and the occasional cockroach, that was one memorable journey. All too soon, we were there and Day One of field trip had officially begun. But its getting late and that one is for another time...

15 days and 2 train rides later...

Before we get to the 'later' part, we must begin at the beginning. Well in the beginning, there were the founding fathers of our department who in their infinite wisdom decided to sanction a 15-day field trip as part of the Field Methods course in our fourth semester. This decision was truly wise because for most people, this trip forms the highlight of the course. In these two weeks we learnt more than we had bargained for and definitely more than anything that can be learned in a classroom. There is something about living with a bunch of people for a fortnight in generally grimy conditions; you get an unimpeded view into people's souls.

So we started off on Feb 25, 2011. This trip covers a fortnight and I'll cover it all, in parts. I'll start with the preparations. I remember we had a rather important seminar conference before the trip. During the key note address, I remember nodding along with what I hoped was a sagacious expression on my face while K. and I made a list of necessary things to carry. It had everything from fresh knickers to kajal. At one point I had written UGs (short for under-garment thingies) and K. asked, "ugs, what the hell are ugs?" When I explained, she said, "Oh, I thought they were something like 'mugs'. 'ugs-mugs', you know..." We sniggered for like 5 minutes after that one.

A couple of days later the morning of our momentous trip dawned and with it came K. The plan was to leave together from my hostel. K. hadn't slept the night before. Having dragged herself up two long flights of stairs and one long corridor, I opened my room to her. I read in a Wodehouse that in ancient Greece it was customary to enact those scenes behind the curtain that were likely to arouse great pathos in the audience. Taking that under advisement I am only going to say that K. must have swayed a little on her feet. Encountering my room in a sleep-deprived state after having dragged a suitcase and sleeping bags up stairs is not recommended for the faint-hearted. I think I heard K. take a deep breath and with heroic stalwartness move forward and in one sweep clear my bed. When I came back after taking a bath, she was asleep.

Leaving from my hostel for the station was another exercise in frenzy. I had conveniently forgotten that my hostel warden in her infinite wisdom had decided that everyone leaving the hostel would need gate-passes for luggage. While I had my gate-pass, K. and another friend who also joined us hadn't. I ran around like an imbecile for a while before someone told me that our warden was to be found in the gym. Sure enough, I found her there in a medieval-looking piece of equipment. When I told her my predicament, she gave me an agonizing look (although that may have been the machine) and signed a permit.

 Having extricated ourselves thus, we were to be found standing stupidly in front of my hostel with 9 pieces of luggage between 3 people. Reason, S. hadn't arrived with the cab. He was supposed to pick up B. (the same B. who a year later would lick my spatula and profess undying love for my fiance) and another classmate of ours before meeting us and heading to the station. S. was having his own adventure in the meantime because said classmate was running around like a headless chicken between the two exits of her hostel with a rucksack about three-quarters her height and weight. S. and B. were finally able to capture her and so after a lot of running and yelling and bickering, we were on our way.

We reached the station well in time and soon it was time to board the train. But that's another story and a very important one because these posts are about the two train rides and the fifteen days that lay between them; and it will have to wait for another day...