October, 18.

When dear old Saxena incised me heart, out popped broken bats, holed balls and tons of twisted steel rails and burnt coaches. No Sindhu or Nehwal then. It looked a railways repair shop, Saxena said, with a persistent smell of smoke, drink and old newspaper clippings. If me notches hours spent in standing thought in locals from Dombivili, Borivili and the sleepy overshots to Virar and Kasar, living was local till one quit living to be at home. In Mahabharata, men and women, spent time killing; did Draupadi ever cook? did Arjuna have aloo parathas for breakfast; did Rama and Sita ever taste idlis with chutneys; did anyone eat beef or pork? With these got mixed the press notes supplied in surplus by sticky public relations officers to type at newspaper offices; trains were for thinking and in the 70s me could smoke and think in running trains till they said no to cigarettes; we always seem to be comfortable with Nos, nahins, nahis....never written a book; no awards yet; no returning;  me plans a rewrite of the Mahabharata with the war a daily affair in locals; no killings; a bit of shoving for the fourth seat or the window seat; Draupadis and Bhims too travel tired for anything; preferring the air conditioned tables and chairs at their offices; and an airless 400 sq.ft of an apartment; Dhritharashtra and Bhishma registered in Old Age Homes; their sons plotting to get the next promotions in government offices issuing ban orders; a ban every day keeps Bombay, Mumbai or any other moniker after 100 years, healthy and gay; and there wont be a Krishna, Arjuna and Gita; there will be poet Arun Kolatkar at Kala Ghoda or at Jejuri talking to none as India will be in prayers and cows. ...'This is the time of day I like best,/and this the hour/when I can call this city my own;.....when it's deserted early in the morning,/and I'm the only sign/of intelligent life on the planet.. poets Arun in Kala Ghoda poems. Taking a local from Churchgate or missing it reading Jejuri...'if only someone would tell you/when the next train is due.' An untimed local is my soul, my Mahabharata, my daily dole; always with a ticket or office funded railway quarterly pass; mostly second class, sometimes first class; a middle class berthed between upper and lower tiers. A sandwiched existence sans butter; neither an Abhimanyu or Karna. A silent, unprotesting Vidura clanging between parallel rails. Kismet, says Thilakan in Ustad Hotel.