A Meeting on the Train
Saturday, September 29, 2007


Children at the Yoganarasimha Temple, Melkote

Here I was, half sick and cursing myself for not having taken the flight but yet curious to know why a 70 odd year old woman, seated right opposite me and dressed in a white cotton saree, was travelling to Melkote. She had mentioned that to a newly made Marati acquaintance from Bhopal who were also traveling on the same train.

‘So… are you going to Melkote for the first time...?’ I said, hoping that my knowledge of having traveled to that place would come of use.

‘Oh no, this is probably my fourth or fifth. I have written a book in Sanskrit and I am going to the academy there to finalize it.’

‘Oh!’, I was disappointed. But wanting to continue the discussion on Melkote I added, ‘Well, I had actually written a short piece on Melkote for a local newspaper few months back..’

‘Was it called ‘Frozen in time’?’

‘Well, yes…’

‘What a co incidence! I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would someday meet the writer! I had quite liked it that I adapted it into a Marati article for a local newspaper in Pune…’

‘Oh!’

Suddenly I did not regret not having taken that flight back home.

(The Sanskrit scholar I met on the train was Dr. Hema Kshirsagar, who is a Marati writer and a translator too. Her daughter was instrumental in setting up the ICU at the Ruby Hall Clinic in Pune, a department which she now heads. Hema’s husband, Dr.Kshirsagar is an entomologist, and a specialist on bees.)


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