The 25-hour train ride from Siliguri to Delhi is one part endurance test (you sit on a bench with a “cushion” alongside two other people while facing a similar trio but with everything at ninety degrees as if ergonomic does not translate into Hindi), one part Covid incubator (you are crammed in and what air circulation there is will surely promote common contamination before offering you any oxygen) and, since everyone listens to, watches, answers, and speaks on their phones at maximum volume, one part slow-moving Call Center.
And yes it is also part olfactory overload, not just in the bathroom, of course, but also when the florals from there drift into the car, as they do at least three or four times more than you are likely to enjoy or at least often enough to undo any status you may revel in from all this being, you know, “first-class.”
That scene in Lawerence of Arabia? When to cross a desert so hot the native army must sit still on their camels all day under umbrellas so as to exert themselves and the animals only during the slightly cooler night? That trip? It was arduous too, right?
Though no one’s phone rings as much as the guy in designer sweats who, for some reason, always lets his ring a few times before answering (perhaps as preparation for shouting his conversations while looking around with that, “I must be important to be talking this way” face common to all men in the world who dress as he does), the two teenage girls (who bump up against each other as friends) take a ton of calls too, even though they primarily scroll to listen to music in ten-second intervals (is this Tik-Tocking?) while also always mouthing (or singing) the words to whatever they hear (when did they ever listen long enough to memorize anything in the first place?) though whether the song comes from their own phone or that of the other they are always in sync when it comes to what they sing or mouth, a near magic trick you could try and decipher as distraction from your aching back, a distraction which may or may not be more distracting than, say, considering how you will describe (for this post) the way the food (Veg? Non Veg? These are your options) is served (in little plastic red trays which present eating challenges as extreme in terms of dexterity as gastronomic) or (again, for the sake of distraction) how you will describe the women who get on at the stops to offer blessings and demand payment for the giving of same and how that distraction is less upsetting, somehow, than the older man who leers at the two girls, a leer which sure looks to be one of lechery but which, for all you know, may be no more than his version of your own befuddlement at their ongoing ability to mouth what they listen to, their normal fare of music entirely unrecognizable to you either because it belongs to the world of India, or to the world of teenagers, or to both though, every once and awhile, you hear something in English and can thus join in (whether they know it or not) for ten seconds of their magic including the best ten seconds of the trip which come as you hum along to what brings a discernable change in the faces to the now king impersonating girls: “Wise men say, only fools rush in . . .”
But long before all this went from unbearable to tolerable, around hour five say, you give in to the reality that of the few thousand days you have left (with luck) to live, this one will not be productive or comfortable, even if it does force you into a “you have zero control here and better get real zen real fast” sort of lesson.
Nevertheless, despite all there is to try and write about, as well as the healthy reminder of my softness and luck to have been born, as Paul Simon puts it, at the right time, I would not be eager to repeat the day or this ride.
Meanwhile, with the exception of a few games of cricket played by children who live in its garbage, dilapidation, and neglect, the window of this train only ever frames one thing: poverty . . . poverty . . . poverty . . .
I will try, Dear Readers, to get back on track with daily posts and to catch up on those I owe . . .