Indian Railways has, for me, over the years become synonymous with adventures.

If they would’ve introduced frequent train traveller cards with discount offers and such, I’d have been laughing all the way to the bank, or to wherever else these cards were valid.

My travel along the Jaipur – Mysore Express via Hyderabad was as eventful as it could get, with two near death experiences involving obese Marwadis and greedy eunuchs.

However, given my propensity towards meandering all over the place before I get down to actually narrating what I started off with, I must bring in some context.

Term 1 got over with the final exams ending at 1700 on tuesday evening, and I had decided that I would head back home soon after.

Most of my classmates who weren’t natives of Hyderabad did the same thing and all of them booked their flights, whereas I, being a self-proclaimed cheap guy had a reputation to live up to, and booked a train ticket for Mysore on the Jaipur Express in the second class sleeper compartment.

The second class sleeper was no longer the staple mode of travel once I had a little money in my pockets and I was travelling to places with unpleasant climates (living in Bangalore makes all other places’ climates look unpleasant by comparison), and consequently, I used to travel by AC.

However, being in debt makes you parsimonious as hell, and brings about a ‘paradigm shift’ in your approach towards frivolous expenditure. (Notice how sweetly I threw in the catch phrase there?)

Cut to Kacheguda railway station at 0100 hours early on wednesday morning, as the train chugged in more than an hour late, while I spent all that time listening to Jason Mraz’s ‘Geek in the Pink’ and ‘Wordplay’.

I went into the designated train bogie with my backpack, and I was greeted by the sight of fourteen people sprawled around in the one compartment of nine seats in which I was supposed to sleep in.

Each seat had two people, and there was luggage on the floor and I had a stunned look of disbelief writ large on my face, and the other fourteen people reciprocated the same feelings in kind, as we sized each other up.

“Have you lost your luggage?”, one of them asked me.

“No, this is all I have.”

Shocked facial expressions followed.

“Are you getting off at the next stop?”

“No, I am going all the way to Mysore.”

Following this exchange, they looked at me like I was a drunken bum, even though I had shaved cleanly because I didn’t want to give the people back at home the impression that I was being a hobo.

The romanticism associated with train journeys and bumping into different sorts of people was eroding fast as the overpowering odour of fourteen bodies in a space meant for seven, combined with their willingness to have a post-midnight snack at the drop of a hat came to the fore.

If these Marwadis didn’t travel with enough food to feed Alexander the Great’s army, maybe that bubble wouldn’t have burst.

However, two nights of not sleeping, and a long wait at the station had me exhausted beyond words, and I got on the top berth, lay my backpack down, and slept, a dreamless sleep.

To be continued…..