Nasik

It's day three on the road, and I'm sitting in a dingy room in a government guest house in nasik. The shower works, but water also flows out of the water-heater when you turn on the tap. The bed sheets had odd, very large patches on them before a skinny boy in tattered jeans and a red wifebeater changed them for me late last night. When I asked him for a bottle of water, he waited to finish drinking himself, then gave me the same water.

And, if you believe me, this is a VIP (very important person) room in this guest-house! Now, by no stretch of imagination am I a VIP, so how did i get this room. Thanks to a News camerman I know with a penchant for drama (I once saw him call a police station, pretending to be the Chief Minister's Personal Assistant, and order the cops to free his nephew, who'd been arrested for riding a motorcycle without a licence). He pulled a few strings and got someone to call the manager of the Guest house, who in turn called the front desk, who got a room unlocked for me. When we were walking in, my friend insisted on carrying my (rather heavy) backpack saying, "watch this." He then went up to the reception and said, "You have to give him a VIP room! Do you know who he is? Didn't your boss tell you? He's a very important journalist. He knows everyone! And he's my boss, so please give him a VIP room." He then turned around and said in the worst engish I've heard, "Sar, how many you wants stay days? One? ok cool one."

Later I asked him (in hindi) what he'd studied, and he said (in hindi), "I have a BA. In English literature." So much for the indian education system.

Other than meet an old friend (acquaintance) I was lucky to meet another interesting young chap,. For some odd reason, this guy, who's so close to the naxal heartland, has a fascination for all insurgencies north-east. He claims to be on back slapping terms with the leader of a Naga Insurgency, and claims to have filmed their training camps in the north east. He says that these insurgencies run a business : to train other militant groups from all over the region!

I realised that coming to nasik was slightly off my route. So, I paid Rs. 80 for a ride to the Nasik Road Railway station. 80 is a lot of money when you have so little of it. I paid another 750 rupees for a ticket to Chandrapur on the Sewagram express. It's an odd train that goes only upto nagpur, but the last 4 bogies are reattached to the Ballarshah express, and they make they way upto Ballarshah. Chandrapur is on route.