We arrived at the train station at about 8:30 pm on Friday. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the station or the train, because its not a good idea to advertise your valuable goods in these places, and I’ve already had my camera stolen once.
The station is a large building, with a central hall about three stories high, and filled with people of all ages and descriptions standing about, or sleeping on thin blankets or newspapers, their heads resting on their luggage. Some have an arm or blanket thrown over their head to block out the lights and the noise, but its very remarkable that so many people can get to sleep in that centre of bustling movement. Then again, one of the things I’ve learned in India is that when you’re truly tired, you can sleep just about anywhere.
We met some people who were coming with us and then moved to the platform. The platform smells of urine and is crowded with people and shops selling everything from pillows, to watches, to inflatable toys. As we stood waiting for our train a white bull walked through the crowd, heading right towards us. We all hurriedly stepped aside and the bull’s horn nudged a man standing nearby. He gave out yelp of surprise (the bull didn’t hurt him) and jumped back. The bull continued on sedately, and began eating from a large garbage can.
Before long the train arrived and we climbed on. We were in sleeper coaches that would carry us overnight to Delhi. There were no compartments separated by doors, just alcoves with six bunks in them. Because initially, only Nicole was going to Delhi, our seating arrangement was rather haphazard. Nicole and I were sleeping in one ‘alcove’ while the kids and Sohayl were supposed to sleep in a different coach. While Nicole and I were in our seats Sohayl came and told us that their coach was full of drunk soldiers who had sealed off the doors. So the kids and Sohayl ended up staying in our coach, and doubling up with their cousins who were just a few alcoves over from us.
I grabbed one of the middle bunks and lay, staring out the little window. The train rattled and swayed. The darkness outside was punctuated by orange lights in the distance, and the backs of lonely buildings. I love riding trains, just for that sensation that you are travelling through the world, without really being a part of it, like an invisible observer seeing all the parts of the world you would never see from the streets. The combination of the train’s antiseptic tube lights, the darkness beyond the barred window with its grimy lintel, and these orange oases makes you feel like you’re in some kind of ghost caravan floating through the desert. There is the back of a two-story building, some kind of office or outpost, with a chain link fence and a row of cloudy windows on the second story. A green light is slowly blinking behind one of these windows and there is a vague outline of couches, and perhaps a man. The building is lit by orange flood lights. What was that place? Who worked or lived there? What does he do? What does he want from life?
Inside the train there is a study of people. A young woman with three small children takes a seat. She’s dressed in a bright yellow and orange saree, with rings on her fingers and toes, the bottom of her feet dyed pink, a piercing through her nose. A young man in army fatigues, a black toque and red bicycling gloves lies on a top bunk with his hands behind his head, silent and aloof. A soldier walks passed with a submachine gun dangling over his shoulder, and his stomach dangling over his belt. An old lady swaddled in shawls peers at me through her glasses. A moth lands on my notebook. The train rattles, sways and rolls.
Every now and then the train stopped at a station somewhere and the coach doors opened to let a few passengers on. Some have bunks reserved, and others are just riding to another stop nearby. Just as the train started rolling away from one station, a woman’s voice wass heard shouting, “Please, please!” There’s some conversation in Hindi, she pleads, and finally they let her on. I can’t understand what she’s saying, but I can hear that she’s close to tears. That tone of voice is international.
Rolled up in a sleeping bag, with my backpack as my pillow, I began to fall in and out of sleep, awoken by peoples’ voices, the tramp of feet or the tea man making his rounds shouting, “Chai Chaiye!”
At six in the morning I woke up a little more firmly. The train was supposed to be in Delhi by six, but it was three hours late – a common occurrence in India. People began to wake up and slowly the sun rose over the Indian countryside.
Across from our alcove sat the old swaddled lady and a young man in his twenties or early thirties, obviously her son. Together they sat staring at the countryside through the window, when suddenly the man leaned forward and rested his head on his mother’s chest. It was very touching, and somehow sad.
A little later on two beggars jumped on the train at one of the stops and moved from alcove to alcove singing a song and jingling their cup of coins.
Finally at about nine we arrived at the Delhi station. We had a quick breakfast and took a bus to the Lotus Temple. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a cool breeze, the perfect weather really, and it put me in a great mood.
Here's the Delhi railway station.
Here's the famous India Gate.
Here I’ll end this particular post. The last time I wrote about that big regional conference in Lucknow, the post was apparently sent around as a report of the conference. I don’t actually mind that, but I’d like to separate my own reflections and experience from strict conference coverage.
