It is 5:30 am in the
morning of 30th March. Somewhere in the A1 coach of the Muzaffarpur
bound Awadh Express, two men – uncle and nephew in relation – are seated
leisurely on their berth. Influential, one could guess, for they had reserved
their tickets through VIP quota. The nephew, a man in his early thirties, was
dressed in a long, spotless white kurta type shirt and loose pyjama. He wore
those planetary rings in almost all the fingers of his right hand, and the
little finger nail hadn’t been cut for months. All this, a thick kada on the wrists and hair neatly
parted from the middle gave him a menacing look. In contrast, the uncle looked
comfortingly normal in his checked shirt and cotton trousers. Nonetheless,
there was an unmistakable similarity in their appearances. The impeccable tilak on their foreheads – a yellow U
with a small red circle in its lower half – left little doubt. They were devout
members of the Swaminarayan sect.
It was poonam in a couple of days, and they
were traveling to Chhapaiya, a
village in Uttar Pradesh believed to be the birthplace of Lord Swaminarayan.
For the nephew, visiting the mandir every
poonam was a ritual. However, this poonam was extra special. It was the
Lord’s birthday no less, and so there were about 200 more followers in the
Sleeper coaches of the train, plus a distant friend in some 3AC coach who was
to join them later for large parts of the journey.
With the passage of time,
and some typical commuter-to-commuter small talk later, one realized the nephew
wasn’t as menacing as his looks betrayed. Far from it, he was quite a fun guy
as he waxed eloquent about his frequent visits on this very train, the murky
politics at the mandir, and how he got a
facebook-addict-CA-aspirant young cousin to take sankalp of visiting Chhapaiya
every third poonam if the Lord
helps him clear the CA finals. While
talking, he would break into hearty laughter at little jokes, often his own.
From
the frequent phone calls he received and made (every single one of which
started and ended with a “Jai..Swami..Narayan!”), the talk about whether Finance
Minister Pranab Mukherjee would relent to demands of striking jewelers, and an
impassioned debate with his uncle about the repercussions of the new budgetary
policies, one could infer he was probably a commodities trader, trading in
gold, silver and the like. Owing to the strike, the business was slow and he
was looking forward to a peaceful fortnight in the Lord’s abode.
Lunch time drew near, and
they invited their distant friend from 3AC coach to join them. This distant
friend, bespectacled and dyed black hair, had just retired from work and was
going to Chhapaiya “after a long,
long time”. He smiled, talked, nodded and smiled again like men of knowledge
do. One peculiar characteristic was that he ended all his statements with a “hu?” – a rural Gujarati equivalent of “su” (“Aa athana nu tel feki aavu
chu etle bagaad na thaay. hu?”) His battered teeth bore testimony to years
and years of chewing gutkha, a habit he said he was trying to give up, albeit
in vain.
He walked in with a small
bag full of packaged foods, snacks and pickle he had picked up from a bustling
eatery in Baroda. As he drew his wares out, the uncle and his nephew glared at
him. “Bhai”, the uncle asked disbelievingly, “you eat OUTSIDE food?” Before
this guy could reply, “Does
that mean you also eat… onions… and garlic?” This friend shuddered and
nodded woefully. “We won’t be
eating anything of all this at all, so put it back in, you may eat with
us”.
Devout with a capital D.
The uncle had never ever
eaten ANYTHING but food cooked in his own home, and his nephew’s, and was
shocked at how these days followers loosely obeyed the principles of the sect.
The nephew who too had never eaten anything with onion or garlic, ever, nodded grimly and pulled out a huge bag from under the berth. The
bag was full of boxes and containers of strictly home cooked food, diligently
prepared without any traces of onion or garlic whatsoever, in a quantity that could last them for days. They ate quietly in paper
dishes and drank from water bottles they had carried from home.
In high spirits after the
sumptuous meal, the nephew reached into his pocket and took out a packet of RMD
gutkha, and holding it from its two corners, shook the pouch vigorously for a
while. Then holding the pouch from one its corners in left hand, he repeatedly beat
its contents with the forefinger of his right hand. The motions brought a smile
to the friend’s face, and he asked “you eat?” “Oh yes” the nephew said “I used
to smoke a lot when I was young… but was forced to kick the butt. Have been
eating gutkha ever since… can’t go without eating 3-4 packets in a day” and
neatly opened up the packet with his long thumb nail. The friend grinned at an
all-too-familiar story “I too have been at it… but trying to give up… hardly
have any these days”, he said sadly.
Sensing the man’s need,
the nephew offered some gutkha to the friend, which he accepted, with part
reluctance and part gladness. The packet’s remaining contents, the nephew
emptied in his mouth, the way seasoned pros do. Happily chewing onto what he
called his dessert, the nephew revealed
that he was carrying enough packets to last him the fortnight, for once you
entered the state of Uttar Pradesh, there’s no way you can get RMD… or even
Manikchand, and there they sold shitty brands like Dabangg Gutkha. The friend
laughed and got up to leave for his seat. Once he was gone, the nephew sighed
and took out another packet. This was uncharacteristic; his uncle frowned at
him. “What? That old man ate half the packet” he said, and ripped open his
packet instead of giving it the usual ceremonial opening, and filled his mouth
to its rated capacity.
Just then, a loud bhajan started playing; it was the
nephew’s phone. He brought to his ear and spoke through a mouthful of gutkha
“Jai..Swami..Narayan, bol shu che, Gold?”
