on the Shalimar Express

There are many liars in the world, and not a few liars, but there are no liars like our bodies, except it be the sensations of our bodies

Kipling

From my first visit to India in 2003.

 

Chapter 5

I leaned on my middle berth thirty minutes from Delhi, with a diet for no food.  Two of the well-kept Indian men in cheap vinyl leather jackets to my right smoked, exhaling blue through a cracked window.  The chai men in red were in full-force, a medium nasal pitch from the back of the throat resonated in the groggy car: chai garum, chai chai chai garum.  The plan today was buy a ticket for Pathonkot, a one-light bus stop spot on the map that was easier to read than pronounce, and then find a bus to Dharamsala.  To leave today would require good timing and a train that was not going to leave before I got to the station and found out I’d missed another.

A nice officer sat at the end of the berth, the end of his rifle came close to my eyes, and we had a nice, short conversation.  He had been in the police force for 20 years and made 7000 rupees a month, or $170.  In the berth next to mine Japanese women put up a curtain for privacy.  It was a nice idea, though it didn’t stop the chai men from stopping and looking in to see if anyone was thirsty for good chai garum, or they just wanted to see what was worth covering up.  I managed to eat a little piece of chocolate for breakfast, along with a diarrhea pill, two advil, sips of warm bottled water and cold feet was my state of the health summary on the 2559 that slowly rolled into the Delhi station.  The trip lasted 13.5 hours and once in the station I offered the angry English man my hand, wished him and his poor and unfortunately luggage-lite girlfriend all the best, then bolted for the foreigner’s ticket office.   

A three-hour hotel room for 400 rupees in order to shower, lie down, and relieve tired bowels was a necessary expense.  I studied my medicinal choices splayed on the bed:  diagnosing an uncertainty that was in all probability not life-threatening required common sense and simple adjustments aside from removing myself from the filth and pollution that surrounded me even in clean places, eating healthful foods, and sleeping right.  As usual I did not sleep much, if at all, on the rails and in the middle berth. The window I rested my head right next to was drafty and I thought every train that went the other way at lightening speeds was going to come through the window and impale my skull with a tail of screaming wind and sound. I chose not to rest my head on the aisle side for concern something or someone would whack, thump, or clang me upside the head with a foot, luggage, or a steel barrel of hot chai.   

After purchasing a ticket for an early afternoon departure, and getting a room, I sat again at Sonu’s restaurant in Pahar Ganj after I couldn’t sleep for even a few minutes.  It was the one place I had eaten and walked away feeling okay later when I first arrived.  I managed to drink half a coke and a half plate of egg fried rice because I had to take this damn medicine, and not on an empty stomach, so said the two pixel font size directions written in medical English barely discernable, except for a few nouns.  Maybe I was supposed to take it on an empty stomach.

Before I left my dayroom I flipped through the channels and watched a story on Oprah, narrated by an Asian American about a village in Madras where people sold their kidneys for $800 because of unemployment and poverty.  The advice for viewers, according to the sincere lady was just be aware, though she was really saying be thankful how good all of you in America have it.  Just be aware.  It was a good motto to adhere to, but maybe for other reasons.  I suppose if one person were to see that story and do something about it that would be a good thing. The woman should have told the primarily female audience to be aware and find out what it is you’re supposed to be doing on this earth, instead of watching and waiting for television to tell you your special purpose before it is too late to make a difference. 

I sipped a little bit of bottled water and looked at my options with the train in front of me.  I needed help getting on the 4645 Shalimar Express to Pathonkot.  My ticket said I was in sleeper car number four, but their wasn’t a sleeping car four between sleeping car five and a sleeping car three.  I raised my hands up high in complete exasperation; one hand clenched confusing information in two languages.  A nice man showed me the way, up towards the front, and I was grateful but didn’t know if he expected a tip.  Relying on the kindness of strangers without compensation expected reassured me and I was grateful.  I also reconsidered the stereotypes that crept into my thinking about a country that had a lot of empty hands out there that couldn’t help others before they helped themselves.

In the berth we started with six, now eight Indians.  A man who was in my upper berth with my ok and another above me totaled ten.  I sat at the end of the berth and wondered how and when I’d ever get to the toilet with all my stuff in a car that swelled.  I didn’t consider asking someone to watch my backpack, so I waited and held my angry continent at bay with meditative skill.  All the windows were open for an afternoon jaunt northbound and it was a little warmer than it had been, when suddenly a man climbed up and into the upper berth above me, making it 11 in a space that a few days ago held six backpackers. 

The woman who crocheted in front of me was solidly plump in her mid thirties and conservatively dressed, with a flair for contemporary and sensible attire. Her hair was long, tied in the back, and she had an earring in her nose that was big and gold.  There were five rings on her left hand, none on the right, due perhaps to the nifty handiwork on her wool dishcloth or sweater she worked on effortlessly.  Covering her shoulders was a finely knit wool shawl in a shade of Fenway park green and flowery paisley patterns embroidered, running around on some seams but not others.  Her dress was floral cotton that went down to her ankles that I didn’t attempt to see, though she did have little black shoes she didn’t wear.  Under the shawl was a furry wool sweater of a turquoise color in the middle with very pink arms.  Nothing matched but for some strange reason it all seemed to work.  She worked with her head down in three shades of green and had not looked up since the train that left 30 minutes ago was also late 30 minutes. Then one of the three sweater men sitting to her right engaged her into their conversation.  They appeared to be businessmen of the small variety and all of them had rings with stones. 

The man to my immediate left who offered to move so I could sit so the man in leather could lie down in my berth and remain there for now and was out like a light, sat up and sipped chai garam.  The man to my left was the eldest member in this cozy corner, and nary spoke a word.  His wife sat to his left and to her left was their daughter who stared out the window at the uneventful countryside.  Neither woman spoke a word.  The elder gentleman wore a red beret which gave him a distinguished look unlike a former baseball announcer in Detroit.   I speculated he might have been a civil servant in his long career and spoke English. When I found my space on the train the man who lay down in my berth asked in Hindi if anyone spoke English but no one answered and the man to my left shook his head only twice in short resignation. 

The contemporary-traditional looking woman in three shades of green looked more Eskimo, or maybe native American Indian, her smooth milk coffee skin and round smooth face didn’t look like any female I’d seen in Varanasi or Agra.  The two men to her immediately right were brothers; you could see it in their eyes, and their high foreheads were bookends.  The man who sat next to the window was at least ten years younger.  His hair was blacker, he held his suitcase-briefcase to him on his lap, and he spoke the most.    While I watched the business between the brothers, the woman across from me stood up and I saw she wore St. Patrick’s Day green leggings of a heavy fabric that may have been wool.  She sure had a lot of clothes on. 

I sensed early on this train a different clientele that with it came the peanut vendors and other entertaining sort.  An old blind man with crooked teeth slipped through the stuffed aisle selling little packets of unsalted skinless peanuts. A boy with a bucket of what looked like macadamia sold handfuls served on a piece of newspaper for five rupees.  I didn’t let anything pass my teeth since I found my place here and had no intention of eating.  The vendors and more people continued to make space disappear and prompted me to make a move to the upper berth; eight people sat in front of me and the aisles were completely mashed armpit to armpit.  I thumbed the man who lay in my berth out and felt a little safer when I suddenly realized why the price for my ticket was cheaper.  This is why.  This was a great experience I found myself in, in spite of the intestinal troubles.  Still I ruminated the possibilities of returning first class or flying back to Delhi.  It was very warm on top and a variety of contorted positions to stem the ever-present flow that wished to cleanse me of whatever remained, kept me very awake. 

The total headcount once the young couple with two hard suitcases wedged themselves in the thick of things, stood at 12.  The shady green lady left.  I felt a little selfish with a half an empty berth when I sat up; all the other beds had two or three bodies fill the space.  I was almost willing to share my space if I could go to the toilet.  On the end of the berth I sat with my legs dangling.  The top of this car was higher than others I’d been in where it was impossible to sit up and read.  Separating the cabins and subsequently upper berth was a mesh of metal.  I heard English spoken on the other side.  A Kashmiri man wanted to know if I was going to Jammu.  Pathonkot is three hours south of Jammu.  He asked again where I was going.  Path…Pathan…Do you speak English? he asked.  Yes, and I don’t speak Hindi. Patonkat…Pa-tan-ko.  Of the few Kashmiri’s I met their English was surprisingly good.  Who had been teaching them up there in the flats and mountains where everybody fought for half a century?  They were a lighter brown than the Keralan Indian in the south of India, but darker than northern Indians.  One man I met in Pahar Ganj was very dark skinned and sported these blue eyes that left me look sideways at him.  The man through the mesh told me he learned English in Delhi and was going home for the holidays to a city I didn’t recognize.  Another Kashmiri man I met in a Delhi gift shop full of carpets, lacquered and hand-painted ornaments, asked me of my thoughts on ending the 57 year conflict in his home of record. How about a new country?  Earlier in the week a train left from Delhi to Lahore, hailed in the newspapers as the peace train while both sides discussed the issues that left the place in such an un-united state. Back on this train I really didn’t want to fraternize with anyone.  All I wanted to do was lie down with my head propped up with my side bag, and cross my legs with every thump and wump in the tracks that thumped and wumped my sphincter.  An old man who sat across from me lit an unfinished cigarette he pulled from his brown sport coat.

When it hurts to hold a position of comfort one is reduced to wonder if this kind of suffering is necessary.  It certainly wasn’t because I could have purchased a first class ticket, ensuring more trips to the toilet without worrying if the bag that was chained to metal framing would leave with the throngs who came on the car in the hundreds with equal numbers leaving.  The aisles were too full to navigate and the scores sat or stood; the car remained quiet to everything but the sound of land that clanged and hushed by on a mostly absurd display of mass transportation. 

Five hours and change passed and I reached the holy grail of sleeping car four and put myself on a new drug for bacterial intestinal trouble.  With an empty bowel, medicine dispensed, my interest in the odd goings on below me peaked.  A boy in the aisle with wooden castanets sang a little song, and did this Elvis hip swagger.  The woman married to the man in the red beret and who hadn’t said a word the entire trip gave the entertainer a coin before he sauntered down the aisle of financial independence.  The faces constantly changed in this car.  There was a man across from my berth who wanted to practice English with me but couldn’t understand a simple question put to him in his desire to do so: why? Two heavily bearded Sikhs who sat across from me were amused at his inability to answer my last question before I went back to my book. 

I was impressed to certain degree, and humbled that the travelers had the patience to endure when there was nothing to be done.  Even with no one to talk to, I saw no one reading or writing anything.  There were long stretches silence, and all looked straight ahead, almost as if they were in states of meditation on the fullness of thinking about nothing or everything that was in their world.