thought i might share a couple of stories of two of our indian train rides - im not sure if i already have but Fodzillas indian train delay has got me re thinking about the past....
...We were on our third day in India and had booked an intercity train from Hampi to Goa. It was to be our first train ride and from all we had read and heard we were excited by the prospect of our first experience of the Indian rail system. Anybody who has been to India will know buying a ticket is a journey in itself.
Indian Rail has over 1.4 million employees and I’d venture to say I needed go through a fair percentage of these on my first ticket purchase alone. Its bureaucracy gone mad.
After waiting in five tedious queues (where women have the legal right to push in), five language challenged windows and six completed forms later, we finally had tickets. We made sure we paid a few extra rupees to get a reserved seat and foolishly thought that we would actually get it. Little did we know that we would not only miss out on a seat, but we would gain another calamitous story to tell.
We waited on the platform as a crowd began to assemble around us, I knew not to feel too special for in India a crowd will flock around something as insignificant as the opening of a Coke can, the sight of Emma; a tall, slender, sandy blonde haired girl was more than enough to get the people heading curiously in our direction. Luckily just before the pack of ogling people became too great, the sight of a rusting pale blue train appeared to quickly disperse them in the direction of the oncoming locomotive.
The aging beast slowed up to the platform; it had shirted, sandal footed men hanging out of every possible open orifice. The regular maelstrom that accompanies any Indian journey ensued. Amongst the chickens, porters, goats, monkeys and people, I told Emma to try and make it towards carriage three and not to stop even if there were people under her feet. We rode the wave of humanity along the platform and took a tributary channel that washed us up to the doorway of our carriage.
As we squeezed in the first thing that I thought of was the train carriages that they transport cattle in. There were people stacked up three high in racks as well as being sprawled all over the floor amongst bags, peanut shells and rouge animals. I still had the fanciful notion that we could find our allocated seats so we squeezed and pushed and slid our way along the packed aisle. As we reached the midpoint of the carriage we found our seat numbers. It was set up with two bench seats facing each other by a barred window and a luggage shelf jutting out from the fake wood panelled wall up above.
On the aisle side was another bench seat up against the pale blue barred window with another hanging half way up the wall. As we investigated our allocation we were greeted by a bulging family of Indians looking up at us, a quick scan behind saw the other two benches overloaded with people all looking at us also.
We had a five hour plus train ride and there was no way we were going to stand there for its entirety so we needed a plan. I looked up and noticed the luggage shelves were empty so I figured we are in India, why not just climb up there and lie across it for the journey, may even get some sleep! I shimmied up one side and Emma up the other; we put our bags under our heads and were quite chuffed with our choice. It was mildly claustrophobic with the ceiling being about a foot above our heads and three huge fans circulating putrid air just next to us, but compared to standing it was heaven. I finally relaxed and had a look around to notice every single eye in our area fixed onto us, I figured this was just regulation
with foreigners on their train.
The familiar feel of carriage links clunking one by one signalled movement as the train pulled off from the station, we settled in for our first train journey. Beneath us I heard a couple of loud bangs and looked across at Emma, she looked a little uneasy; I then felt another bang and a groan. I’m getting a little confused at what might be happening when I hear the people below beginning to chant, it was not a happy -let’s go on a train ride kum ba ya- chant, it was a more rhythmic who can we maim or dismember chant.
I could not see what was going on because it was directly beneath me but I asked Emma and she said she didn’t know. I knew this was code for ‘stop asking me because it’s getting weird’. I looked down beneath Emma and saw people rocking back and forth whilst chanting louder and faster. An older Hindi lady was barking orders whilst grabbing a plastic bag. My heart was starting to beat quite fast now as I noticed the carriage around us had began to clear, we were the only two people left there stuck above whatever was going on.
Then I heard a loud pained male scream, it really pierced the air and it made the people begin chanting louder and faster still in a constantly quickening rhythm. I briefly snuck a peek underneath my shelf and caught a glimpse of a man thrusting about with four or five people struggling to hold him down. As my heart began to beat out of my chest the old lady produced a small bag of yellow powder and dipped her thumb in, she proceeded to wipe a small amount onto each chanting persons head over the red dot on their foreheads. It was about now I really began to get scared, I was thinking we should not be here, we should definitely not be here now, and whatever is happening I’m not too sure, but I want to get down this instant.
The next moments of the ordeal were a surreal blur of chanting, my heart racing and the sounds of commotion down below. My mind was thinking really strange thoughts, I actually had the thought that they were trying to kill him, or they were ripping his heart out from his chest Indiana Jones style. The lady began chanting orders whilst throwing pieces of garlic and oddly shaped fruits and nuts across at the man. I cannot see a thing apart from three chanting rocking people and a witch doctor throwing items. I am far too petrified to look below so I am relying on Emma who was hunched back in her shelf trying not to look and wishing she could be anywhere else.
Then I heard another agonised scream and the bench I was laying on shot up violently. I panicked and looked at Emma who hissed, “We have to leave, now!” The chanting had nearly reached a crescendo as we grabbed our bags and started to dangle our legs over the end to escape. A person down below pushed up on my feet in a motion to stay where I was, her stony expression made it clear escape wasn’t possible.. So here we were stuck over the top of some kind of exorcism with no way of getting down and no idea what to do.
All of a sudden the chanting reached a high peak then stopped, the man ceased thrusting and the lady takes her garlic and methodically throws one clove out of each open window. An older man calmly utters a few orders and the whole party rises and makes their way up the aisle, the train comes to an abrupt stop and they all jump off and walk up the tracks.
I slumped back and tried to take in what had just happened, in my moment of weakness I didn’t think to get down and claim the empty seats. Our empty seats. I figured it was a crime scene or something! No more than a minute later the train was back on its way and the area was full of people again like nothing had ever happened, just another show on the Indian rail.
When our hearts had returned to normal human levels I asked Emma what had actually transpired from her view. She said the man had red bulging eyes that were rolling around in his head. Just as we pulled off from the station the man had looked up at her and launched himself up towards her in an aggressive manner only just being restrained by his party. For the rest of the time he was struggling to break free from their clutches to the tune of the chanting as he was wrestled by five or six people, all the while his piercing red eyes were fixed on her. At the point when I heard the scream and the force from down below the man had broken free and thrust himself up at her again but was fortunately restrained, this was the point that Emma had said we have to leave.
As we analysed what we thought had happened we figured that the guy must have had some kind of epileptic fit but this family remedy must have involved the chanting and odd fruits. Another theory that Emma bandied about was that he was in some kind of drug psychosis and the family was trying to purge him somehow in a ritual. I know for sure that Turmeric is used in the sub-continent to cleanse spirits, could the yellow powder have been this spiritual cleanser? Whatever it was I know I was scared, but when I found out what Emma had experienced, I felt like I had the better side of the deal.
and then the redemption?
After the horror of the previous train exorcism we made sure next train trip we chose a sleeper carriage so we were absolutely guaranteed our seats. Even though the train was delayed in transit and ended up being a twenty seven hour ride toward Kolkata, we still had a bearable time. We were bunked in with a welcoming Indian family who had brought a bag full of home cooked food which was about the weight of all of them combined.
When they realised we were amateur train users who did not bring their own food they took pity and fed us with roti breads, chutneys, curries and chillies the entire way. Chillies combined with train toilets and twenty seven hour journeys are probably not the best combination, but you take the good with the bad sometimes.
I remember Karl Pilkington once saying ‘You have no control over your arse in India, as soon as that plane lands your arse has a mind of its own’. The round headed man makes a good point; it has been said that people go to India to find themselves, I don’t know if I found myself per se, but I definitely found out a few new things about my digestive system.
We were taken in as surrogate family members and the patriarch insisted on buying us one of every item that was being peddled by the train hawkers, be it a Samosa, a Baja, a Pakora, a bowl of Dahl or one of the ubiquitous cups of Chai Marsala that were on offer. Each time he would offer it to us then would lean in expectantly and wait for our response with the question “nice item?”
This journey probably reinforced the fact that most people you meet on your travels are nice folk and are eager to show off their country and their hospitality at any time possible. The father of the family’s name was Ajit. He was a business owner who seemed firmly entrenched in the wealthy middle class of India. He wore a pressed pair of slacks and tucked in business shirt. He brushed his thin oily hair hourly and always seemed to flick his side part with his hand as we spoke.
His family looked happy and well-adjusted and didn’t bat an eyelid as a leper would claw his way along the aisle begging for change or food. In fact it was a difficult getting them to even look away from their expensive phones. I have a little bit of trouble understanding the caste system, and how you can be born into a class where you are untouchable and have no prospect of a better life but on reflection is it actually any different in our world, really? i suppose we have the opportunity to make change if we want it enough.
As I delicately posed these questions to Ajit I probably knew I was getting myself into more than I wanted to. He assured me that India was an emerging superpower with more millionaires than any other country in the world. With my basic understanding of the situation I can’t help but notice that there seems to be a lot of suffering and inequity of the division of wealth.
Just in the Dharavi slum alone there are over one million people squeezed into an area of just under 0.67 square miles, there is an average one toilet for every 1500 people, and all this is in the shadows of some mansions that would put the kings of excess in the west to shame.
But i didnt delve to much into it, its not my place to make waves on this train journey particualy when this family were treating us so well. Before our first nights sleep they all sat together and sung what sounded like hymns for about twenty minutes. This was music to our ears, a complete opposite of the manic chanting of the previous trip.
As we rolled in 16 hours late and waved goodbye to our new friends I cant help but think we just had one of those travel experiences that you dont get by taking a tour, one of those experiences Michael Palin has every week and you think, pfft, that never happens to real people.
...We were on our third day in India and had booked an intercity train from Hampi to Goa. It was to be our first train ride and from all we had read and heard we were excited by the prospect of our first experience of the Indian rail system. Anybody who has been to India will know buying a ticket is a journey in itself.
Indian Rail has over 1.4 million employees and I’d venture to say I needed go through a fair percentage of these on my first ticket purchase alone. Its bureaucracy gone mad.
After waiting in five tedious queues (where women have the legal right to push in), five language challenged windows and six completed forms later, we finally had tickets. We made sure we paid a few extra rupees to get a reserved seat and foolishly thought that we would actually get it. Little did we know that we would not only miss out on a seat, but we would gain another calamitous story to tell.
We waited on the platform as a crowd began to assemble around us, I knew not to feel too special for in India a crowd will flock around something as insignificant as the opening of a Coke can, the sight of Emma; a tall, slender, sandy blonde haired girl was more than enough to get the people heading curiously in our direction. Luckily just before the pack of ogling people became too great, the sight of a rusting pale blue train appeared to quickly disperse them in the direction of the oncoming locomotive.
The aging beast slowed up to the platform; it had shirted, sandal footed men hanging out of every possible open orifice. The regular maelstrom that accompanies any Indian journey ensued. Amongst the chickens, porters, goats, monkeys and people, I told Emma to try and make it towards carriage three and not to stop even if there were people under her feet. We rode the wave of humanity along the platform and took a tributary channel that washed us up to the doorway of our carriage.
As we squeezed in the first thing that I thought of was the train carriages that they transport cattle in. There were people stacked up three high in racks as well as being sprawled all over the floor amongst bags, peanut shells and rouge animals. I still had the fanciful notion that we could find our allocated seats so we squeezed and pushed and slid our way along the packed aisle. As we reached the midpoint of the carriage we found our seat numbers. It was set up with two bench seats facing each other by a barred window and a luggage shelf jutting out from the fake wood panelled wall up above.
On the aisle side was another bench seat up against the pale blue barred window with another hanging half way up the wall. As we investigated our allocation we were greeted by a bulging family of Indians looking up at us, a quick scan behind saw the other two benches overloaded with people all looking at us also.
We had a five hour plus train ride and there was no way we were going to stand there for its entirety so we needed a plan. I looked up and noticed the luggage shelves were empty so I figured we are in India, why not just climb up there and lie across it for the journey, may even get some sleep! I shimmied up one side and Emma up the other; we put our bags under our heads and were quite chuffed with our choice. It was mildly claustrophobic with the ceiling being about a foot above our heads and three huge fans circulating putrid air just next to us, but compared to standing it was heaven. I finally relaxed and had a look around to notice every single eye in our area fixed onto us, I figured this was just regulation
with foreigners on their train.
The familiar feel of carriage links clunking one by one signalled movement as the train pulled off from the station, we settled in for our first train journey. Beneath us I heard a couple of loud bangs and looked across at Emma, she looked a little uneasy; I then felt another bang and a groan. I’m getting a little confused at what might be happening when I hear the people below beginning to chant, it was not a happy -let’s go on a train ride kum ba ya- chant, it was a more rhythmic who can we maim or dismember chant.
I could not see what was going on because it was directly beneath me but I asked Emma and she said she didn’t know. I knew this was code for ‘stop asking me because it’s getting weird’. I looked down beneath Emma and saw people rocking back and forth whilst chanting louder and faster. An older Hindi lady was barking orders whilst grabbing a plastic bag. My heart was starting to beat quite fast now as I noticed the carriage around us had began to clear, we were the only two people left there stuck above whatever was going on.
Then I heard a loud pained male scream, it really pierced the air and it made the people begin chanting louder and faster still in a constantly quickening rhythm. I briefly snuck a peek underneath my shelf and caught a glimpse of a man thrusting about with four or five people struggling to hold him down. As my heart began to beat out of my chest the old lady produced a small bag of yellow powder and dipped her thumb in, she proceeded to wipe a small amount onto each chanting persons head over the red dot on their foreheads. It was about now I really began to get scared, I was thinking we should not be here, we should definitely not be here now, and whatever is happening I’m not too sure, but I want to get down this instant.
The next moments of the ordeal were a surreal blur of chanting, my heart racing and the sounds of commotion down below. My mind was thinking really strange thoughts, I actually had the thought that they were trying to kill him, or they were ripping his heart out from his chest Indiana Jones style. The lady began chanting orders whilst throwing pieces of garlic and oddly shaped fruits and nuts across at the man. I cannot see a thing apart from three chanting rocking people and a witch doctor throwing items. I am far too petrified to look below so I am relying on Emma who was hunched back in her shelf trying not to look and wishing she could be anywhere else.
Then I heard another agonised scream and the bench I was laying on shot up violently. I panicked and looked at Emma who hissed, “We have to leave, now!” The chanting had nearly reached a crescendo as we grabbed our bags and started to dangle our legs over the end to escape. A person down below pushed up on my feet in a motion to stay where I was, her stony expression made it clear escape wasn’t possible.. So here we were stuck over the top of some kind of exorcism with no way of getting down and no idea what to do.
All of a sudden the chanting reached a high peak then stopped, the man ceased thrusting and the lady takes her garlic and methodically throws one clove out of each open window. An older man calmly utters a few orders and the whole party rises and makes their way up the aisle, the train comes to an abrupt stop and they all jump off and walk up the tracks.
I slumped back and tried to take in what had just happened, in my moment of weakness I didn’t think to get down and claim the empty seats. Our empty seats. I figured it was a crime scene or something! No more than a minute later the train was back on its way and the area was full of people again like nothing had ever happened, just another show on the Indian rail.
When our hearts had returned to normal human levels I asked Emma what had actually transpired from her view. She said the man had red bulging eyes that were rolling around in his head. Just as we pulled off from the station the man had looked up at her and launched himself up towards her in an aggressive manner only just being restrained by his party. For the rest of the time he was struggling to break free from their clutches to the tune of the chanting as he was wrestled by five or six people, all the while his piercing red eyes were fixed on her. At the point when I heard the scream and the force from down below the man had broken free and thrust himself up at her again but was fortunately restrained, this was the point that Emma had said we have to leave.
As we analysed what we thought had happened we figured that the guy must have had some kind of epileptic fit but this family remedy must have involved the chanting and odd fruits. Another theory that Emma bandied about was that he was in some kind of drug psychosis and the family was trying to purge him somehow in a ritual. I know for sure that Turmeric is used in the sub-continent to cleanse spirits, could the yellow powder have been this spiritual cleanser? Whatever it was I know I was scared, but when I found out what Emma had experienced, I felt like I had the better side of the deal.
and then the redemption?
After the horror of the previous train exorcism we made sure next train trip we chose a sleeper carriage so we were absolutely guaranteed our seats. Even though the train was delayed in transit and ended up being a twenty seven hour ride toward Kolkata, we still had a bearable time. We were bunked in with a welcoming Indian family who had brought a bag full of home cooked food which was about the weight of all of them combined.
When they realised we were amateur train users who did not bring their own food they took pity and fed us with roti breads, chutneys, curries and chillies the entire way. Chillies combined with train toilets and twenty seven hour journeys are probably not the best combination, but you take the good with the bad sometimes.
I remember Karl Pilkington once saying ‘You have no control over your arse in India, as soon as that plane lands your arse has a mind of its own’. The round headed man makes a good point; it has been said that people go to India to find themselves, I don’t know if I found myself per se, but I definitely found out a few new things about my digestive system.
We were taken in as surrogate family members and the patriarch insisted on buying us one of every item that was being peddled by the train hawkers, be it a Samosa, a Baja, a Pakora, a bowl of Dahl or one of the ubiquitous cups of Chai Marsala that were on offer. Each time he would offer it to us then would lean in expectantly and wait for our response with the question “nice item?”
This journey probably reinforced the fact that most people you meet on your travels are nice folk and are eager to show off their country and their hospitality at any time possible. The father of the family’s name was Ajit. He was a business owner who seemed firmly entrenched in the wealthy middle class of India. He wore a pressed pair of slacks and tucked in business shirt. He brushed his thin oily hair hourly and always seemed to flick his side part with his hand as we spoke.
His family looked happy and well-adjusted and didn’t bat an eyelid as a leper would claw his way along the aisle begging for change or food. In fact it was a difficult getting them to even look away from their expensive phones. I have a little bit of trouble understanding the caste system, and how you can be born into a class where you are untouchable and have no prospect of a better life but on reflection is it actually any different in our world, really? i suppose we have the opportunity to make change if we want it enough.
As I delicately posed these questions to Ajit I probably knew I was getting myself into more than I wanted to. He assured me that India was an emerging superpower with more millionaires than any other country in the world. With my basic understanding of the situation I can’t help but notice that there seems to be a lot of suffering and inequity of the division of wealth.
Just in the Dharavi slum alone there are over one million people squeezed into an area of just under 0.67 square miles, there is an average one toilet for every 1500 people, and all this is in the shadows of some mansions that would put the kings of excess in the west to shame.
But i didnt delve to much into it, its not my place to make waves on this train journey particualy when this family were treating us so well. Before our first nights sleep they all sat together and sung what sounded like hymns for about twenty minutes. This was music to our ears, a complete opposite of the manic chanting of the previous trip.
As we rolled in 16 hours late and waved goodbye to our new friends I cant help but think we just had one of those travel experiences that you dont get by taking a tour, one of those experiences Michael Palin has every week and you think, pfft, that never happens to real people.
