He was coming from Gangtok, Sikkim, where he had visited his sister. Her family runs a hardware shop that sells cement and fittings.

He was headed to Kolkata to meet the family of his late brother. They run a transport business.

His brother in Guwahati owns a factory that manufactures iron rods.

Born in Rajasthan, he's grown up in Nepal, where his father traded rice and jute.

He's lived in several places, and now, 63-year-old Satya Narayan Agarwal is based in Surat, Gujarat.

"The businessman goes where he finds opportunities to make wealth," he said, adding quickly, "and where there is peace."

While there was no dearth of opportunities in Guwahati, where his family ran several businesses – transport, rolling mills, mattress manufacture – there was a lot of unrest.

"There was all this trouble. AASU phansu," he said. AASU stands for All Assam Student's Union, which had spearheaded the Assam agitation in those years. "I told my brothers, you stay if you want to, but I won't."

We were talking on board the Teesta Torsa Express, the train named after the rivers of the eastern Himalayas. Teesta river flows through Sikkim. Torsa through Bhutan. Teesta Torsa, the train, starts from Jalpaiguri in Bengal and briefly skirts Bihar before re-entering Bengal and terminating at Kolkata.

Dressed in a bush shirt with stripes, bespectacled, with a hint of paan-stained teeth, Agarwal looked every bit of the older generation Marwari trader, who takes the train even though he could easily afford to fly.

Agarwal moved to Gujarat in the early 1990s. Within no time, he had set up a business in printing and selling saris.

"There's peace in Gujarat. There is no tension. Not like Assam and Bengal," he said.

"But there have been riots in Gujarat?"

"Riots happen everywhere in India. There is Hindu-Muslim tension wherever you go. Rajasthan, Delhi, UP, Bihar…"

"But you said you left Guwahati because of the tensions?"

"That was different…In Gujarat, riots start and end quickly. Here, the tension is constant. Murders, kidnapping, extortion. Although I must say the situation in Guwahati has improved quite a lot. They no longer harass you with constant and petty demands. Ab chota chota nahi, mota mota hota hai. They take Rs 1 crore, Rs 2 crore at one go."

"No one demands money in Gujarat?"

"No, you have to only pay the tax. In Kolkata, you have to cough up donations at the time of Durga Puja, Kali Puja, what not."

"But in Gujarat, don't you make contributions at the time of Navratri?"

"That's different. Those are voluntary payments. Here, if you don't pay, the dada log do gundagardi. We have a transport office on the Tara Chand Dutt street in Kolkata. They show up a month before Durga Puja and ask us to pay a certain amount per truck..."

But the high point of Gujarat, according to Agarwal, is not the relative peace, but the fact that the state has "no such thing as labour".

"The system is based on contracts. I pay people according to the amount of work they do for me – like the number of saris bundled," he said. "I have a big business but only one person on my staff. In Kolkata, we have a small office but five staffers. Here, they force you to take them as staffers and then within days of joining, they raise the flag of protest."

In his analysis, Gujarat's superiority boiled down to a difference of culture.

"Gujarati people are business-minded. Assam and Bengal, most people are in service...Business-minded people never want to get dragged into fights...It's been more than 20 years since I've been living in Gujarat. There hasn't been any police enquiry. No thana, no court."

"What about bribes?"

"Bribes are taken everywhere."

"But they say you don't need to bribe in Gujarat?"

"That's only kehne ki baat. Taking and giving bribes is in our blood. We are corrupt to the core. Today's politics is for the gundas. A good guy cannot stick around. If you stand for elections, you need to have money. Only if you spend can you win."

“But Aam Aadmi Party fought and won in Delhi without money power?"

"Look at what they are doing now. Have dinner with Kejriwal for Rs 20,000s, for a lakh, etc etc."

"But people are giving out of free will?"

"Ek dega to do lega. If someone's giving one, they'll take back two. That's for sure. This whole thing [Aam Aadmi Party] is short lived. The way things are going in India, we'll soon have a revolution. Only then would things get better."

"What kind of revolution?"

"The politicians would start getting beaten up. Each one of them. Either reform yourself or you won't be spared."

"Won't that adversely affect business?"

"Yes, it would, but just once. In the long term, things would be better."

"People were thinking Kejriwal was bringing a revolution?"

"If Kejriwal wanted to bring revolution, would he have dumped Anna [Hazare]? Anna ko to dhakka de diya. He pushed Anna away. He only wants to further his own interest. Apni roti sek raha hai."

It did not seem like a question that needed to be asked, but I asked nevertheless.

"Who do you vote for?"

"The business community has always voted for BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]."

"Why is that so?"

"It's hard to explain...Let me just say, the businessman wants to have peace."

But as he would soon admit, economics forms is only part of the reason for the sustained support that the BJP draws from Bania communities.

"What's lacking in India today? There's so much wealth that if India wants, it can buy out America," Agarwal said.

What made this comment even more unreal was the fact that our train was passing through Kishanganj, one of the poorest districts of India, with a per capita income of just Rs 7,775 in 2006-‘07.

"But there's also tremendous poverty in India?"

"That's true. But who's created it? Our politics. You need to keep people poor, not to raise them from poverty. If you raise them, how would you run your politics...We are paying the price for the mistakes of Nehru. There are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. If Pakistan was an Islamic state, shouldn't India have been a Hindu Rashtra? And then there is all this regionalism. Sardar Patel wanted zones – east, west, north, south – and not states. But Nehru did not listen to him."

With such a worldview, it would seem Agarwal would be delighted with the predictions for the next government.

"One Narendra Modi as a sahukar would not help. He can't run the ministry alone. Would his colleagues also be sahukars?"

Sahukar is a term used for moneylenders. It might hold negative connotations for others, but for a businessman like Agarwal, it is a word of high praise, meaning a man you can trust.

"If you are good, but the others in your family don't support you, what can you do? If Modi wants to keep his government going, he would have to tolerate them. And it's certain that Modi is not getting a full majority. No party in India is in a position to get a full majority for the next 50 years. Only khichdi governments would come. The different constituents would keep pulling each other's leg."

"But what if Modi were to get the magic number?"

Without a shade of doubt in his voice, and with much resignation, he shot back: "Why even imagine scenarios that won't happen?"

Click here to read all the stories Supriya Sharma has filed about her 2,500-km rail journey from Guwahati to Jammu to listen to India's conversations about the forthcoming elections -- and life.