"It's the way I am," I insisted, laughing self-consciously in the conversation he was directing across the whole carriage of interested fellow passengers.

"Such scratches and bruises I have it on my bodies, Lin," he whined, talking to me, but appealing to the curious gallery. He lifted his shirt and singlet to display what was indeed a rough scratch and gathering bruise. "For this old fellow to put the left-side buttocks on the seat, I have these many scratches and bruises. For his right-side buttocks, I have more bruises, on my other side also. For him to put his two-sides buttocks on the seat, I am all bruising and scratching on my bodies. This is a very shame, Lin. That is all I'm telling you. It is a very shame."

He'd drifted between English and Hindi until all of us knew the substance of his complaint. Every one of my fellow passengers looked at me with frowns or head-shakes of disapproval. The fiercest glance of reproof, of course, came from the elderly man for whom I'd surrendered my seat. He glared at me malevolently during the entire four hours. When at last he rose to leave, and I resumed my seat, he muttered such a vile curse that the other passengers sputtered into guffaws of laughter, and a couple of them commiserated with me by patting my shoulder and back.

Through the sleepy night, and into the rose-petal dawn, the train rattled on. I watched and listened, literally rubbing shoulders with the people of the interior towns and villages. And I learned more, during those fourteen constricted and largely silent hours in the crowded economy-class section, communicating without language, than I could've learned in a month of travelling first class.

No discovery pleased me more, on that first excursion from the city, than the full translation of the famous Indian head-wiggle. The weeks I'd spent in Bombay with Prabaker had taught me that the shaking or wiggling of the head from side to side-that most characteristic of Indian expressive gestures-was the equivalent of a forward nod of the head, meaning Yes. I'd also discerned the subtler senses of I agree with you, and Yes, I would like that.

What I learned, on the train, was that a universal message attached to the gesture, when it was used as a greeting, which made it uniquely useful.

Most of those who entered the open carriage greeted the other seated or standing men with a little wiggle of the head. The gesture always drew a reciprocal wag of the head from at least one, and sometimes several of the passengers. I watched it happen at station after station, knowing that the newcomers couldn't be indicating Yes, or I agree with you with the head-wiggle because nothing had been said, and there was no exchange other than the gesture itself. Gradually, I realised that the wiggle of the head was a signal to others that carried an amiable and disarming message: I'm a peaceful man. I don't mean any harm.

Moved by admiration and no small envy for the marvellous gesture, I resolved to try it myself. The train stopped at a small rural station. A stranger joined our group in the carriage. When our eyes met for the first time, I gave the little wiggle of my head, and a smile. The result was astounding. The man beamed a smile at me so huge that it was half the brilliance of Prabaker's own, and set to such energetic head waggling in return that I was, at first, a little alarmed. By journey's end, however, I'd had enough practice to perform the movement as casually as others in the carriage did, and to convey the gentle message of the gesture. It was the first truly Indian expression my body learned, and it was the beginning of a transformation that has ruled my life, in all the long years since that journey of crowded hearts.

We left the railway at Jalgaon, a regional centre that boasted wide streets of commerce and bustle. It was nine o'clock, and the morning rush was in rumble, roll, rattle, and swing. Raw materials-iron, glass, wood, textiles, and plastic-were being unloaded from the train as we left the station. A range of products, from pottery to clothing to hand-woven tatami mats, was arriving at the station for dispatch to the cities.

The aroma of fresh, highly spiced food stirred my appetite, but Prabaker urged me on to the bus terminal. In fact, the terminal was simply a vast open patch of rough ground that served as a staging area for dozens of long-distance coaches. We drifted from bus to bus for half an hour, carrying our bulky luggage. I couldn't read the Hindi and Marathi texts on the front and side of each bus.

Prabaker could read the signs, but still he felt it necessary to ask every driver about his destination.

"Doesn't it tell you where every bus is going, on the front of the bus?" I demanded, irritated by the delay.

"Yes, Lin. See, this one says Aurangabad, and that one says Ajanta, and that one says Chalisgao, and that one says-"

"Yeah, yeah. So... why do we have to ask every driver where he's going?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed, genuinely surprised by the question. "Because not every sign is a truly sign."

"What do you mean, not a truly sign?"

He stopped, putting down his share of the luggage, and offered me a smile of indulgent patience.

"Well, Lin, you see, some of those driving fellows are going to places that is nobody wants to go to. Little places, they are, with a few people only. So, they put a sign for a more popular place."

"You're telling me that they put a sign up saying they're going to a big town, where lots of people want to go, but they're really going somewhere else, where nobody wants to go?"

"That's right, Lin," he beamed.

"Why?"

"You see, because those people who come to them, to go to the popular place, well, maybe the driver can convince them to go to the not-popular place. It's for business, Lin. It's a business thing."

"That's crazy," I said, exasperated.

"You must have it a bit of sympathies for these fellows, Lin. If they put the truly sign on their bus, no-one will talk to them, in the whole day, and they will be very lonely."

"Oh, well, now I understand," I muttered, sarcastically. "We wouldn't want them to feel lonely."

"I know, Lin," Prabaker smiled. "You have a very good hearts in your bodies."

When at last we did board a bus, it seemed that ours was one of the popular destinations. The driver and his assistant interrogated the passengers, to determine precisely where each man or woman intended to set down, before allowing them to enter the bus.

Those travelling the furthest were then directed to fill the rear seats. The rapidly accumulating piles of luggage, children, and livestock filled the aisle to shoulder height, and eventually three passengers crowded into every seat designed for two.

Because I had an aisle seat, I was required to take my turn at passing various items, from bundles to babies, backwards over the loaded aisle. The young farmer who passed the first item to me hesitated for a moment, staring into my grey eyes. When I wiggled my head from side to side, and smiled, he grinned in return and handed the bundle to me. By the time the bus rolled out of the busy terminal, I was accepting smiles and head-wiggles from every man in sight, and waggling and wiggling at them in return.

The sign behind the driver's head, in large red letters in Marathi and English, said that the bus was strictly licensed to seat forty-eight passengers. No-one seemed concerned that we were seventy passengers, and two or three tons of cargo. The old Bedford bus swayed on its exhausted springs like a tugboat in a storm tide. Creaks and groans and squeaks issued from the top, sides, and floor of the bus, and the brakes squealed alarmingly with every application. Nevertheless, when the bus left the city limits, the driver managed to crank it up to eighty or ninety kilometres per hour. Given the narrow road, the precipitous fall on the low side, the frequent columns of people and animals that lined the high side, the titanic mass of our swaying ark of a bus, and the vertiginous hostility with which the driver negotiated every curve, the speed was sufficient to relieve me of the need to sleep or relax on the ride.