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Chapter 3: Varanasi

It was late in the afternoon when we landed at Varanasi Junction. Unknown to me, as you would recollect I was firmly ensconced in the arms of Morpheus; we had crossed the River Ganga an hour or so ago, which to all Hindus, is the holiest object and the subject of much veneration. I did recollect waking up somewhere on the way possibly at Gaya for my morning coffee and then remember going back to sleep. Morpheus’ arms were not as powerful this time around and I vaguely recollect crossing Mughalsarai, the great junction where all the principle railway tracks running between Howrah and Delhi meet before diverging again for their different destinations. From Mughalsarai one could either take the grand chord via Dhanbad and Gaya to Calcutta or the main line via Patna. Travelling west from Mughalsarai one had a choice of three networks to Delhi and our train had taken the one in the middle, which crosses the Ganga a few miles west of Mughalsarai and almost immediately after the great crossin...
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Chapter 2: Calcutta

While I am in the arms of Morpheus waiting to embark on a new phase of life in Varanasi, lets move Father time back a few notches to speak about Calcutta and my own insignificant background. I spent most of my senior schooling life in Calcutta with assorted relatives, sometimes full of joi de vivre as much as a lower middle class in India could afford, often strict in discipline and orthodoxy but then always affectionate and loving. I grew up amongst about 20 assorted relatives including several cousins four of whom were of comparable ages to mine and thus a not insignificant feeling of competition - never discussed openly but always present in the background - evolved. The competition was always healthy, with books & notes, ideas and thoughts exchanged in total harmony creating a learning environment that was sustained in its excellence and focus. My youngest uncle whom we have been introduced in the first chapter was a kind of role model for us cousins, a lean but never mean ta...
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Chapter 1: Himgiri Express

Himgiri Express stood proudly as its daily wont on Platform no 8 of Howrah station - there was only one station in those days before the authorities had put to fruition the burlesque idea of increasing the congestion of the already incredibly congested and polluted environs of India’s largest railway station by constructing additional platforms in a new complex for the South-Eastern Railway on the southern side of the existing area - ready to leave on its daily sojourn from the mouths of the Ganges to somewhere very near its source. I was filled with a nameless fear tinged with some anticipation of what the future beckoned. I was, after all, leaving the cosiness of the city I loved like a sweetheart, the innumerable friends and relatives and most importantly the comfortable feeling that only comes with spending a lifetime in a place; for a city that I had never set eyes upon, the environs of the university I was going to about as familiar to me as fresh clean water to a particularly la...
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