Mumbai Express (not to be confused with its cousins the Polar or Hogwarts)

All day we have been antsy about Mumbai. Our first venture out of our beloved Hyderabad kept my brain working in overdrive the night before; things to pack, things to see, errands to run, excitement to be had and expectations to be met. At 7pm sharp our cab arrived. Wow, so prompt, which left us unprepared! Caught off guard by this unexpected timely gesture, we stuffed our faces with dozens of momos (Tibetan dumplings), roti, rice, dal and papaya. A rather unfortunate affair, since that is one of my favorite meals. Kate, our fearless leader, of course was the only one prepared and the rest of us scrambled. I snatched up my plaid pack and sleeping bag and helped heard all our Mumbai bound babies toward our Jeep Grand Cherokee look alike. Most people had 1 backpack and a carry on, like me. 8 of us were unkemptly crammed into the jeep while the rest of the 4 girls nauseatingly peered through the open doors. No one quite knew where to rest each others’ arms because the shoulder collisions forced bizarre contortions. One of my arms made its way out the window and I don’t even know whose body parts my other limbs laid atop. Maybe it was luggage? Either way both of my elbows were several inches above my shoulders. This I knew. 4 more girls and their luggage somehow folded into the car: a new meaning of double stuffed. The driver took our mind off our physical discomfort by serenading us with Will Smith, Linkin Park, Black Eyed Peas, and Gaga. At first we felt the buzz from the jams we recognized. We chattered and gabbed. I recognized voices, but could not identify the bodies they were coming from. Suddenly, we all calmed. The rather simultaneous muting was interrupted by a small voice from the bowels of our dog pile. “Can you shift to the left? Im feeling nauseous.“ Various degrees of motion sickness/nausea enveloped all members of our party.

Our train was set to depart at 8:40pm. It is now 8:00pm. Where is the train station? I recognize where we are, but I don’t really know where the train station is in relation to our vehicle. Nerves begin to overwhelm the nausea. The blood had drained from my fingertips long ago and was pooling in my shoulders. My knees were being barraged by something quite solid and my sweaty skin was grafting to whatever objects it was pressed against. The cab driver makes us promise if the police pulls us over, to tell the officer our driver barrowed the cab from a friend (we were WAY over capacity). The lights of the Nampalli Train Station pull into view. 8:17pm.

The swarms of people outside the station have never looked so inviting! Nauseous, excited, sticky people tumble out of the cab and rush into the madness. We have no idea what we are doing and it is Very apparent. The fast paced movement of the people is intoxicating. A red digital clock stares at us in the atrium.8:21pm. We follow the crowd to the platform and search for ticket interpreting assistance.

Train tickets! Oh boy, since we booked the train merely 2 weeks in advance we were initially put on a waitlist. There are too many people in India to just pick up and buy any transportation tickets. Buying tickets 2 months in advance guarantees a seat, buying tickets 2 weeks prior to travel is a gamble. Our house manager, Mr. Das, assured us we had moved off of the waitlist into confirmed seats on the train before we left our hostel. Due to printer problems, we were unable to print out our confirmed tickets and only possessed a small paper which showed our waitlisted status. This paper confused every Indian we showed it to, and no one pointed us toward helpful information.

8:33pm. We are paralyzed amidst hundreds of Indians. Saris and beggars, venders and toothless men gaze at our white female pod. I notice a huge crowd disappearing into the train. The crowd pauses for a moment to look at a paper, then, is consumed by the train. Kate, faulty ticket in hand, darts off toward the crowd.

8:37pm. Why aren’t we doing anything!? Are Indian trains as prompt as American trains?? I pace around and swivel my head wildly. Maybe my exaggerated body movements will help us find our train car. I jog the length of the train feeling like my actions might help in some way, or maybe I will catch a glimpse of the ever elusive Kate.

8:38:30pm. Kate appears, sweaty and wide eyed. She doesn’t need to say anything, we just run. A string of 12 white girls weaves through the locals, who begin to point and laugh at us. Pure amusement is in their eyes. We are Thursday night entertainment!

8:39:30pm. The names of the passengers are posted on papers to the right of each door compartment. The noise in the station is swallowing our voices and cluttering my mind. 24 nervous eyeballs scan the sheet. Eleanor Mackintosh. YES! Becca reads aloud the names in my compartment and we shove onto the train. The aisle is narrow, and so are the seats on the left side. The right side is quite deep; it appears 4 or 5 can sit comfortably across the bench on the right side. The eyes of Indian men snap toward us to observe our confused white actions. I am taken aback by the overwhelming ratio of men to women on this compartment. About 80 indian men, to 6 american women. I uneasily inch into the compartment to collect my bearings. This will be my home for the next 16 hours. We haven’t the slightest idea how to find our seats. I am struck by how blueish everything is. Blue plastic covers all seating areas, blueish brown floors support our feet, and worn blue like paint coats all remaining surfaces. Black dirt and piles of trash collect in every corner and crevice, and every inch of space is occupied by brown bodies. Clutching our faux ticket print out, we are limboing in the space between 2 compartments. The train lurches and we are off!

Some man standing with us in limbo land is insisting we have no seats on the train. He keeps urging us to exit from whence we came. “You will get refunded! Just get off or be fined.” He stated the facts so clearly. Well, our oppotunity to exit the train car flits past the open door as we rush out of the station. “No, we have seats on this train, we just don’t know where to find them!!!” He kept increasing his volume and smiling broader by the second, as we grew hotter and louder by the millisecond. My beet red face pulsed each time he repeated “get off, or be fined”. We sounded so delusional and looked even crazier: sweaty, disheveled, bulging terrified eyes in our heads because the skeptical Indian men watched our every move. Each of us took to voicing some helpful pearl of wisdom on repeat. We became an irritated and irritating accapella ensemble: “we have seats on the train! We HAVE seats on the train!!” “im sweaty, im sweaty, im sweaty.” “is there a woman’s compartment? Where’s the woman’s compartment?” “ok, im being pushed. Stop jostling me! Ok, im being pushed. Stop jostling me!” “Our printer was broken, so we weren’t able to print the most recent ticket sir.” “who is this guy? Wait, why are we listening to him? Who is this guy?”

“our names were posted on the paper outside of the door,” a voice added to the mix. The voice of reason sent a wave of calm over everyone. A man overheard and sheparded us to our shallow seats.

A sleeper car: the configuration of a sleeper car will be difficult to describe, so I will try my very best. The deep right side has 2 bench configurations facing each other. 2 plastic top bunks bolted high above the “bottom bunk bench” are only 2ish feet from the ceiling. A middle bunk lays flat and unused against the wall, until sleep time provokes the unfolding of this “in between bed”. So, 6 passengers sleep in 6 separate beds on the right side of the car. An aisle separates this deep 6 bunk side from 2 upright seats. These seats are perpendicular to the 6 bunks, face each other in a booth style configuration and are bordered by another bunk to the top. 2 humans are expected to share this bottom bunk. Quite intimate! Thankfully, we were all paired with Americans we knew, not strange Indians. Becca and I sat quietly in the upright seats, wondering how we would unfold the bed when the moment arose. The vacant upper bunk lured me in with its promise of personal space. I scampered up to journal and try to settle in.

Exhaustion hits like a ton of bricks. I soon became guardian of the valuables, since my bunk was least accessible and most spacious. I had already witness one of our own get pick pocketed and was feeling particularly feisty toward strangers. How does one sleep when so many are watching and all of the cameras have been entrusted to her? I exposed my back to the train aisle traffic and masculine eyes. I wrapped my limbs around camera bags and backpacks. I was trying to create a barrier with my body and at the same time make contact with each parcel I was guarding. I drifted off to sleep with surprising ease! About an hour later someone lightly tapped between my shoulder blades. I was on edge enough to jolt awake, but pretended to be asleep. I intently listened in order to decipher who was stroking me. I did not want to interact with any of the gawking men. Thankfully, I recognized the voice as one of my friends and heeded her request to forfeit my top bunk outpost. The passenger who had purchased this bunk just boarded the train. I distributed our valuables back to their owners and climbed into bed with Becca. Becca and I reluctantly shoved our valuables under the bunk. We fit together like tetris pieces! I slept face out, so to keep one eye on our bags. I vigilantly peered through my eyelashes, observing the activities of all of our compartment mates. People were brushing up against me, sitting next to my head, staring, and rummaging underneath our bunk. I was trying to sleep in a grimy blue plastic display case! Only, I wished there was glass to separate Becca and I from the curious Indians. It was much busier down here and colder too! A 1cm gap in the window exposed our bodies to the rushing air. I kept looking for spaces Becca’s body had recently occupied and moving my body parts quickly to the warm spot. We were both shivering. Suddenly, epiphany! I brought my sleeping bag! Do I want to draw more attention to us by whipping out a northface sleeping bag? Men were laughing hysterically and I couldn’t tell if it was related to us, or something else all together. I tried contracting my muscles to keep up my body temperature…no dice. I tried to sneakily slip under Becca’s scarf blanket…no success. Sleeping bag came out, and sleep relief began. Blood curdling cries from a small child lulled me to sleep.

I was woken by the sun and the urge to use the bathroom. Armed with toilet paper and a sense of accomplishment for sleeping most of the night I unlatched the latrine door. I was slapped in the face with one of the foulest smells which has ever traveled into my nostrils. Pure filth, extreme body odor with an aftertaste urine stings my eyes. I must forcefully exhale this scent from my respiratory tract! It is offensive on many biological and emotional levels. The floor is coated with a thin film of brown liquid. I survive the bathroom with minimal gagging. I pass several families squatting in the trashy connection between the train cars on the way back to my seat. Women made dirty nests amongst the refuse in the busiest part of the train for their overnight accommodations.

As, sunlight poured into the cars and warm chai was distributed to all, our accommodations seem much less dire. Our disorientation gave way to curiosity. The 6 men opposite Becca and I expressed similar interest. Vendors passed up and down the aisle “Chaayyy coffee, coffee chai!”, selling zippers or strawberries. Honestly, it was a convenient store conveyor belt. Anything you could ever want would pass by being proceeded by an eerie sing-song proclamation of the product being sold. A child acrobat began to jest with the boys across from us. This seemed to be a popular theme. People, especially other men, loved to stop in their compartment, gawk at us and make merry with the men across the way. It didn’t take much to excite the gathering of men in the compartment across from us. Simple deeds like, reading Lonely Planet, writing in my journal, eating dates, or making friendship bracelets solicited open mouthed stares, laughter, or a question from a brave soul. They spoke in rapid hindi, and Becca and I were able to pick out words here and there. One man was nudged forward by his friends and he tried to casually inquire about our knowledge of hindi. “Tora. Tora. (little. Little)” I responded. You would have thought I offered each one of them a million dollars! Sheer joy broke across their faces and an eruption of noise filled the train! It was in that moment that I noticed there were about 20 men surrounding our little nest. The applauded and clawed each other as they rolled with laughter. We continued to exchange broken hindi and broken English with enthusiasm. Becca and I were no longer the only 2 occupying our seat. Our friends took it upon themselves to sit next to us and between us. We watched beautiful canyons roll by our window and learned they were students as well. Right before they disembarked, a man who had been occupying the corner of my seat and questioning me in raspy tones, slipped a bracelet on my wrist. Small gestures of kindness here can be misconstrued as quite large proposals. It is quite possible that this raspy man now thinks we are engaged. They yelled goodbye from the platform and wished us “happy January”!

I wrote this in mid January and it is remarkable how much I have grown since originally taking down these thoughts. I rode on a sleeper train a week ago and actually remarked to my travel mates how much I enjoy that mode of transportation and how clean the train car was!CRAZY!