2927 Vadodara Express Ch. 01

© Prahaar 2006. All rights reserved.

Author’s note:

Some of the sexually significant dialogue is in Gujarati or Hindi to preserve the original flavor. Every word has been translated into English.

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I was 20 years old and just out of college. It was the ’70s. I was a virgin who had discovered the wonders of masturbation some weeks ago. I was very curious and my hormones were raging. If there was a sexual revolution on, it had completely bypassed me. A few old issues of Playboy and some bad Black and White pictures of people at sexual intercourse was the only sex education I had had.

I travel a lot for my work, being in Sales and Marketing.

In the past, many of these trips were undertaken at short notice and trains in India as a rule being overbooked, it was not always possible to get a reserved sleeper. I had just graduated and was out to close deals at any cost to do well on my first job. I used to reach the railway station early in tine for the train to come to the platform. I would then push my way into the unreserved compartment and grab some seats.

In this particular instance, I was 2 hours early. I was going from Mumbai to Baroda and had secured myself two seats on this night train, as was my habit. I would always save a seat beside mine, just in case a friend needed one. If no friend turned up, I would offer the seat to a thin passenger and save myself some discomfort.

It was an extremely cold winter night and the compartment was empty when I pushed in (sheer habit – people push each other even when there is plenty of space). I was sure it would get packed before departure, though.

I was soon joined by a family of four. They occupied the seats across from mine. The man was uncouth, rude and unhelpful and kept snapping at the woman for no reason at all. She did a wonderful job of managing her two young children and all the baggage and maintained a stoic silence all through the ill-treatment. She seemed like a good mother, not passing on any of this shit to her children. After putting away her baggage, she sat her older child down, giving it a cheap toy which easily distracted him. Her other child was an infant girl. She sat down cross-legged in the seat opposite mine and put her in her lap, rocking her occasionally.

She asked the man who seemed to be her husband to shut all the windows since it was so cold and the husband grumblingly obliged, pulling down shutters and windows, completely blocking the station from view. I did not raise an objection. It would soon be bitterly cold. Her husband ordered her to protect his seat and stomped off.

The woman’s facial features were rough but she was by no means ugly. Her face had some tattoos and these and the design of her jewelry indicated her rural origin. She was tall and plump, but not fat. It was difficult to glean more about her body from her seated posture. She seemed relieved at the departure of her husband.

Having noticed that I had been observing her predicament sympathetically, she smiled wanly at me. I smiled back and told her that it was not easy to travel with children. She agreed and asked me how many children I had. I told her that I was not married. She seemed surprised and asked me my age. When I said that I was twenty, she said that some men in her village had three children by that age.

I asked her how old her husband was. She said that she did not know his age or her own, but he was much older than her. This was his second marriage and her parents had been forced to marry her off to him since they did not have the money for a dowry. He was a worker by day in a factory in Baroda and a watchman by night at the owner’s home. She had come to Baroda five years ago after her marriage. Her language was of the soil and she was obviously uneducated. Upon asking, she told me that her name was Mangala but refused to name her husband (a normal practice amongst some Indian women).

‘Don’t you find it difficult to manage without a woman (Baira vagar kem chale chhe tamne)?’ she murmured. I said that I lived in a hostel and so food and other amenities were not a problem. ‘You men have other needs too (Tamne purushone to biju badhu bahu joiye)!’ she hinted. I could not believe that a woman whom I had just met had made that bold comment and I looked at her in disbelief. I had grown up in a conservative family where sex was not even alluded to. I wanted to talk as much on this subject as I could. When she saw my incredulous look, she repeated what she had said.

To provoke her, I said that I did not know what she meant. That drew her out. ‘Come on. You are 20 years old and seem to be able bodied! Don’t you know what a man and a woman do together? Haven’t you been with a woman? Don’t get me in trouble by acting innocent and making me talk all these things. (Chalo have. Vih varahna thaya ane kasayelu sharir chhe. Koi baydi jode suta nathi? Manah ane bairu sathe shun kare te khabar nathi? Ajaan banine mari pase badhu bolavsho na!) ‘ she whispered. I said that I had never been with a woman and pointed out that there was no one else in the compartment with us.

‘What do you do when your thing stands up (Ubho thaye tyare shun karo chho?)?’ she asked. I kept quiet. ‘Probably your thing does not stand up or you would find a woman to put it into. Have you never seen a naked woman? You must have women in your neighborhood or amongst your relatives who can teach you these things. (Ubhu nahin thatu hoye nahin to atyar sudhiman ghalva mate koi bairi na shodhi hoye? Nagi bairi joi chhe ke nahin? Ados-pados ke saga-vhala man koi chhe nahin aa badhu tamne shikhvadva?)’ she asked. I confessed that I had not and did not. ‘You city men go to schools and colleges but are actually completely ignorant and illiterate. You can read and write but can not fuck! (Sheher na purusho shala ane college man jaye pun kain aavde na tamne. Bhanta-ganta aavde, pun chodta na aavde to shun kamnu?)’ she scolded. My head reeled at the use of this four-letter word. What a turn this conversation had suddenly taken! My penis started uncurling and raising its head. We were speaking in whispers, after all this was a railway compartment.

At this interesting juncture, her husband walked in. She lapsed into silence and I cursed him under my breath. He asked me where I was going, what I did and where I lived and I filled him in on all these details. Such curiosity would be considered ill-mannered in the West. To not respond to such queries or not show a reciprocal interest in one’s co-passengers would be considered uncivil in India. I found out his name (A quick smile crossed her face) and where he worked and lived and he readily shared that information with me in minute detail. They lived quite near my hostel.

Suddenly, the infant in Mangala’s lap started crying loudly. She coolly pushed aside the sari, uncovering her blouse. The blouse was almost unbuttoned and I could see the sides of two enormous breasts at the parting of her garment. She wore no bra. She raised one side of the blouse baring a dark nipple and raised her infant’s mouth to it. The child stopped crying and latched on to the nipple, sucking away. She turned her body modestly towards her husband, lowering her sari, hiding this scene from my eyes. The whole process took only a few seconds and although I saw a lot, I could not register much. Feeding babies in public is common in most parts of India.

Mangala asked her husband if he had enough ‘bidis’ (Indian cigarettes) for the trip. He cursed her for reminding him so late, since his brand was not available on the station. He asked me the time. I told him that there was more than an hour and a half left for the train’s departure. He asked her to protect his seat and was about to go off to get his ‘bidis’. The other child asked to go with the father and he reluctantly agreed to take him along. ‘I know that you will ask me for candy’, he said. ‘They will be able to come back in time. The shops are not far away’, I told Mangala after they departed.

Mangala looked at me and our eyes met. She moved her body on her seat in my direction and raising her sari, looked down at her suckling infant, patting it on the head. The infant let go of the nipple and looked at its mother. I could see the nipple clearly now. It was black, elongated and thick like a berry. Drops of pearly white milk were clinging to its surface. The aureole was two inches in diameter and had goose bumps all over it. The nipple must have been three quarters of an inch long. The infant reclaimed the teat and continued sucking noisily.

Next, she raised the other flap of her blouse and the other boob sprang to freedom. The nipple was not as large, probably because it had not been sucked on yet. Our eyes met again and she started patting, palming and pressing her own boob. It was enormous! Putting her palm under it, she raised it and let it settle down a couple of times, as if she was weighing it. She announced proudly to me, ‘Full of milk. I can feed a whole school full of children! (Bahu dudh chhe. Aakhi shala bharine chhokraone paun etlu)’ Then, pinching the area behind the nipple between the fingers of her hand, she tugged it a few times. Her milk jetted from it, spraying over her clothes and the floor.

She did not cover her boobs this time and I unashamedly drank in this show, my penis painfully erect. She shifted her infant to this nipple and sat up erect, raising one of her knees vertically. Her short, loose and voluminous sari and skirt rose above her knee and her hairy, unshaved leg came into view, pressing her breast to one side. I soon understood what she had done. Anyone passing by in the compartment would be unable to see anything. The windows were shut on all sides and no one would be able to look in. Her sari and leg covered what she was showing me.