From Bombay Central

The Saurashtra Express waits to start Chained patiently to the platform, Good pet, while I clamber in To take my reserved window seat And settle into the half-empty compartment’s Cool; the odour of human manure Vague and sharp drifts in From adjoining platforms. The station’s population of porters, Stall-keepers, toughs and vagabonds relieve themselves Ticketless, into the bowels of these waiting pets; Gujarat Mail, Delhi Janata, Bulsar Express, Quiet linear beasts, Offering unguarded toilets to a wave Of non-passengers, Bombay Central’s In-residence population. That odour does not offend. The station’s high and cool vault Sucks it up and sprays down instead, Interspersed with miraculous, heraldic Shafts of sunlight, an eternal Station odour, amalgam Of diesel oil, hot steel, cool rails, Light and shadow, human sweat, Metallic distillations, dung, urine, Newspaper ink, Parle’s Gluco Biscuits, And sharp noisy sprays of water from taps With worn-out bushes, all Hitting the nostril as one singular Invariable atmospheric thing, Seeping into your clothing The way cigarette smoke and air-conditioning Seep into you at cinema halls. I sink back into my hard wooden Third-class seat, buffered by This odour, as by a divine cushion. And do not suspect that this ride Will be for me the beginning of a meditation On the nature of truth and beauty. [From: Mirrored, Mirroring; Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1991]