On this overnight train to Hyderabad I had found some very pleasant company. A father son duo and do yaar and ofcourse me. The father-son were especially amicable. The father was settled in Chicago. the son lived in Australia. The son’s sister was studying in Europe some where and I think maybe the mother was in India. They were going home; to little England, Hyderabad, to celebrate Christmas with old friends. The two friends were just retuning from their vacation in the Middle East via Sri Lanka. Did you know you can’t exchange Indian currency in Sri Lanka!!! Well they couldn’t and they had this adventure story about how they luckily had some Dirham coins clinking in their pockets; enough to afford them some food while they waited for their flight to Chennai. I have this vague memory of them talking about going snorkelling in Sri Lanka but now it doesn’t make logical sense and I can’t recall the flow of events in their story anymore. I was just going home for the yearend holidays. We were all really Hyderabadis at the end of the day.
So I was having this pleasant conversation with this uncle from Chicago. I was reading Sherlock Holmes at that time. So the conversation picked up from there he recommended another detective series, ofcourse which I can’t recall the name of, and we progressed to us discussing our fascination for old Hindi songs and his love for Lata Mangeshkar’s voice. The son, I found out, was a professionally trained bar tender who didn’t drink. He refused when the boys offered him a share from their bottle which they were secretly glugging on the third tier. The two feiends were of the “milbaithein teen yaar” varienty. We all ordered the meals served on the train and had dinner together. The son gobbled the food down while the father and I slowly but meticulously chewed and swallowed each piece of food in the tray. Uncle said I was good company for dinner and even invited home for Christmas or was it the son who said that… anyway, as we were basking I this warm reverie of bonhomie, a sudden thud against the the bogie shell broke our torpor. There was another thud then a klud and a kud and finally a kinlk. I looked at uncle ,startled and slightly worried, for an answer. He explained in a slightly regretful tone, “ Many animals get hit by the train when the tracks pass though wilderness.” There was a feeling of sickness in the air and on my face; which slowly sunk to my heart. How is that possible? When animals can sense the tiny pre-seismic vibrations that humans are immune to then surely they can feel a train coming! If not that then surely the headlights should startled them off! You think it was harakiri? Would animals do that?