Harrowing Failure to Catch a Train

Three weeks of silence! Explanations, please...

The simplest reason is that we've beed quite dreadfully bored for a great deal of it. Due to some poor scheduling and unfortunatey circumstances we found ourselves in Mumbai for two weeks longer than expected, and with very little to do (that wasn't shopping or otherwise financially depleting). But quite beyond having little to do, there's also the problem of free time, and what it's like to have altogether too much of it. When you've been pushed and pulled into every moment of your life by school, work and whatever other myriad committments and obligations you've had for years on end, suddenly having a vast expanse of time to do with whatever you wish leaves you strangely faced with the question of what, exactly, that is.

So, we're quickly discovering the value of discipline in organizing and structuring time. We became rather depressed and more than a little isolated at the end of our unplanned two weeks in Mumbai. We did fill that time with a few things, mind you; I've learned to cook a few Indian dishes (and have made a comfortable art of making my own marinara sauce!). We also took in a play, and it was hands-down one of the better bits of theater I've ever seen (not that I'm particularly travelled in the thespian circuit). It was a comedy, and in general a meditation on the infiltration of India by Western economics, 'culture' and lifestyle. The plot: an Indian business man convinces an American suicide-watch help line to outsource their call center to India. Sadly I cannot possibly do justice to the brilliance demonstrated in both the script and the acting, but it was truly funny, which Ninotchka and I both felt was a rare treat after so many years watching Western cinema's reductionist slapstick (a comedic mode equally popular here, I should note, just not on this occasion). We visited a few other people, collected a few more recipes, and then finally left Mumbai, a leave-taking which became significantly more dramatic than we'd intended. We had decided to make for Goa, to complete our visiting tour and to soak up some sun on its famed beaches. But to get to Goa one first needs to succesfully board to a train headed there as well.

I've written at length about Mumbai traffic, and yet the stories there to tell are endless; this one concerns traffic jams, and the hair-raising adventure of getting through them quickly, and on a deadline no less. We had about two hours to catch our train, but these were two hours as passed through the lens of Mumbai's rush-hour traffic; hours bent through such a prism emerge as minutes. What might have been a twenty minute journey at midnight—perhaps, thirty kilometers—fell in the late morning cacaphony just short of the two hours we'd budgeted. Babloo, our driver and a man who I'm certain could park an SUV in a mailbox, clearly recognized time and Mumbai traffic both as old foes in need of yet another vanquishing. Careering through back alleys, tangential highways, and between stagnant flows of competing traffic, there was a Darwinian quality to Babloo's tactical nagivation. Punctuality, here, is only for the fittest.

Yet despite his best efforts (which nearly killed at least a dozen people, but actually injured none), we arrived eight minutes after our train had left. Babloo took this quite grievously to heart, as though it had been a deep and unsettling character flaw of his that had cost us our train instead of an infrastructural chaos remiscent of twenty-million salmon, recently intent on spawning upstream, having quite suddenly and unamimously lost all sense of time and direction. We reassured him as much, and then went to see what could be done about getting another train. It's a maddening story and not one worth telling in detail, but suffice it to say that anything vaguely reminsicent of bureaucracy is to be avoided in India, at almost any cost, or else one should at least expect to pay a hefty toll in the currency of sanity beyond any other fees for services rendered. Not that alternatives abound, and not that these were much better; there were options available from either illicit or at least private-sector means, but neither of these fell within our price bracket, especially since we had just purchased a train to nowhere and were not being refunded for it. It is worth noting that Diwali, the Hindu New Year, and a holiday of a magnitude akin to Christmas, was at this time only a week away, significantly reducing one's impromptu travel options due to millions upon millions of people exercising their's well. We ended up with the lowest-fare, lowest-class seating one can get, which is, it turns out, not in fact even a guarantee of seating. "Non-AC, third-tier unconfirmed" is code for "stuffy metal compartment full of more people than can fit without assigned seats". It is incredibly economical (a ten hour train ride cost us, together, about $9), but very uncomfortable, and you are likely to share your seat (or rather, your bit of the bench) with four or five others. Ninotchka was small enough to sneak into the overhead luggage rack for a quick nap, but I had no such luck. Such trains are only possible in a country that is as civilized as India; in the West, these trains would be an intolerable failure. The sharing, hospitality and consideration given to each other occupants of this train was quite moving; a marvelous (if necessary) display of teamwork and cooperation, making the trip bearable. It was a beautiful way to see the Indian country side, but the next time we travel we will most certainly spring for guaranteed seating (especially since our next train is likely to be on the order of thirty hours, not ten!). 

We arrived, safe if weary, at 1:30am and were greeted by Ninotchka's Uncle Pierre and his partner Natasha, a Russian woman who moved to India five years ago. I'll write again in a couple of days and bring this thing up to date, so as not to gloss too quickly over the details of Goa, because aside from being the first bit of actual 'travelling' we've done since arriving, it's also been a pretty interesting experience. As promised, I have another round of pictures, which will be followed by a third round as soon as I can locate some bandwidth!