I now remember when — and how — the itch actually began. Sometime in August 2000, I was a part of the contingent of journalists travelling from Delhi to Nagpur on G.T. Express. We were accompanying Bangaru Laxman, a deputy railway minister at the time, who was to be crowned as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s new president at its national council meeting in Nagpur.
That was the first time I was sitting in a south-bound train; for that matter, the first time I was travelling across the Vindhyas. South India, for me, was only an idea until then — a fascinating idea; fascinating because it was so distant and so different from the north, where I had lived all my life. And now the journey gave me an authentic taste of the south, starting with the hot medu vada s and dal vada s that came out of the pantry car as soon as the train pulled out of the station. The uniformed attendants selling them were all Tamils; the passengers in adjoining coaches were mostly Tamils; the labels on the water sachet served along with dinner were all in Tamil — a script totally new to me.
By then I had got into the habit of watching newly-released songs in south Indian languages on cable TV, transfixed by their scenic locations and energy-oozing choreography. By then I had also watched Kandukondain Kandukondain — with subtitles, in a Delhi theatre — a movie that had swept me off my feet.
So when I boarded the G.T. Express that evening, I was already besotted by the south and contemplating on my existence in Delhi. All I needed was a hard push to leave Delhi — where almost every journalist is afflicted with self-importance — and move down south in search of a more meaningful life.
The hard push, strangely, came from the soft water sachet. I kept turning it in my hand, trying to decipher the Tamil words printed on it, knowing fully well that it was an exercise in futility. I suddenly found myself gripped by the urge to live in the land of that language — the language of Kandukondain Kandukondain . When we got down at Nagpur station the following afternoon, my heart was heavy. I wished we could have travelled on, all the way to Chennai.
There is a famous line — I think from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist : When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
And so, less than five months after this journey, I was on the train to Chennai, reaching the city the day after Pongal. What I didn’t know at the time was that I would end up spending 14 Pongals there.
