A Passage From India

My coworkers and I decided to go to Kolkata (Calcutta) for the weekend. We arrived at the Bhubaneswar train station Friday afternoon at around the same time as the sky opened up and thick sheets of rain furiously came falling down. It was under a cold and gray backdrop that I first caught sight of the blue train that we would be traveling on for seven and a half hours. It reminded me of those trains you see in black and white films in the scene where the starlet's scarf covered head leans outs of the window calling to her lover as he endeavors to out run the train.

This romantic image quickly faded once I entered the non-AC chair car of the train. Replacing it was the odor of frying oil mingled with the faintest smell of chai and something a bit sour, like stale public toilets. The inside had a dingy, fallen look. The formerly white walls were a muddied grayish color accented with a dull peeling blue paint. Six or seven fans were creaking overhead, and small pools of water were gathering on the hard, inflexible train benches as the windows stubbornly stayed open.

We tried to find our seats through the parade of people coming down the aisle. One man selling pakoras out of a flimsy metal plan, another man urging you to buy a bag of potato chips from the crate he was carrying. More men shouting out the goods they were offering: chai, bottled water, and packets of gum dangling from a carrier as if the whole structure were a mobile that belonged in some baby's crib. There were also the travelers, of course, with their overstuffed bags pushing their way toward their seats. And then there were the blind, the one-armed, the crippled, reaching out their hands for just a few coins.

We found our places and squeezed into seats 97, 98, 99 and 100. After settling our belongings, we waited for the train to depart.

Anyone who has ever been on public transportation with me can guess that I was asleep within moments of the train moving. When I awoke, the rain had dissipated and the train car was filled with heavy, clingy air. As best as they could, my fellow passengers had contorted themselves into rest-like positions, mouths half-open and a sheen of sweat on their faces. I was pressed against the window, but when I turned around I saw huge expanses of green land. As the train continued chugging along, I focused in on the leaves and grass holding on to the last droplets of rain.