‘Hurry up Nafu, push your way through baba or you’ll never get on,’ my aunt yelled through the dust coated window railings as I tried my hardest to squeeze between the sweaty, over burdened throng of folk, like myself, trying to get on the 9:45 am train from Bombay to Bangalore. The option to travel by air had been instantly rejected on a whim. The (then) eighteen-year-old idealist relished the chance to experience the land of her forefathers by rail.
For the first three hours of the journey, I kindly relinquished my seat to an old woman who proceeded to take off her worn Chappals (sandals) to tuck dirty, heel hardened feet under her in the yogi seating style. I looked around at the tired yet excited faces squatting on every inch of the floor & even crouching or lying on the overhead railings allocated for luggage! My optimism quickly faded as I realised that this was what I would have to put up with for the next 28 hours! Babies wailed in the heat of the stuffy compartment, folk chatted loudly in Hindi & Marathi oblivious to their discomfort (or indeed mine), hawkers selling food, glass bracelets and God only knows what else hopped on & off at every station creating an overbearing symphony of general chaos & a first class third-world-package all for the price of 400 odd rupees!!
I sulked and whined and returned the offers of fruit & shy smiles from my fellow passengers with ungracious scowls. Eventually I scooted over to my Aunt (who completely ignored my petulance) and turned my attention to the golden sunflower fields in the distance. Then the change happened…1:00 pm and out came the dubaa’s (lunch boxes).
In my humble opinion, nobody (and the same is true for all countries) can conjure up the kind of saliva provoking, instant stirrings-in-the-tummy food, as the “salt of the earth”. Caviar is delicious (no argument there) but how can it be compared to simple, freshly baked hot bread for instance? With the smells of dahl (a mildly spiced aromatic infusion of lentils, tomatoes & onions), sabji (literally translates to vegetable but in this context refers to a side-dish of either one type or several vegetables tossed together in a large pan and seasoned generously with a mix/match of herbs and spices), roti (soft & fluffy naan style bread that melts in your mouth), and tart mango pickle, the train’s belly swelled – and my own shrank from hunger! Indian people in general are naturally generous…it wasn’t long before all us, once strangers, shared what we had and ate together as one big family. Needless to say, the smile from this experience that originated in my tummy, spread quickly to my heart & lingered on my lips for the rest of the journey!
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