Religiously Addicted

It is 5:30 am in the morning of 30^th 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?”