The Train

Anju wanted me to see the country, and the train would cover five states; Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Chatisgarh, Maharastra and Gujarat. 36 hours from Chennai to Ahmedabad doesn’t sound altogether unpleasant with a bunk to sleep on and air conditioning. Which it wasn’t, though my meals consisted of dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, three packages of biscuits and an order of dal wada which were paraded through the car piping hot.

I was warned about accepting food- any food from people on the train. Gangs were working the Navajeevan Express slipping mickies to unsuspecting passengers and robbing them blind. Come to think of it, the morning coffee on day one was hot, overly sweet and a bit suspicious… was it the chalky undertaste? Was it the work of the notorious biscuit gang—a group of bandits who lurk from car to car posing as passengers, drugging the tasty buttery cookies that now served as sustenance for unsuspecting ABCDs? Or was it my paranoia running amok? But why did the coffee make me soooo sleeepy?

Just my luck- drugged out of the gate. I bit my bottom lip, tapped my fingers to “Bulls on Parade” I sang Walt Whitman’s Niece”, to myself of course. Anything to keep awake, stay alert for any biscuit wielding thug who might happen by… but alas no one did. I dozed off for a solid ten minutes before my phone rang and the ‘drugs’ wore off.

The scenery was vast. It is a subcontinent after all. I wish I had a map of some use with me, crossing vast rivers and even vaster dried up riverbeds it was hard to know where we were at any given moment. Unlike the States, they are no signs welcoming you to such and such state—one simply pulls into one station to the next Yesterday we crossed one in particular that made me gasp. There below us a hundred meters or so down was an intricately carved staircase, old, decades, even centuries old, leading down to an immensely dry river. I believe these were steps to a bathing spot or something of daily use. But now, the dam that spanned the width of it looked dilapidated and particularly useless, a clear reminder that the river was gone, and so were the livelihoods of those who had trusted its waters. On either side were clusters of grass huts a few patches of greenery that were marked by the telltale brick of a ground well surrounded by dust. How these people eat and make ends meet is beyond me.

While other dry riverbeds gave some indication that they would fill up again with the monsoons, a tree or clump of grasses, animals trekking through the basin and birds. But this river showed nothing. What does it mean to watch a river die? Or worse yet, what does it mean to kill a river, if that is possible to do?

My bunkmates included a rather wealthy pair- mother and daughter heading home to Ahmedabad- and another friendly older man who talked to me about Columbus, Ohio. He was impressed by Americans’ professionalism and discipline. He said that the one thing that Indians lack is one or both of these things. I have heard this same line phrased in different ways; that Indians would do great things if… that Indians had the potential for… but lacked…one thing or another.

It is a bit disappointing really to hear such negativity about someone’s own country- while in that country. I have heard negative views about India my whole life from those who had emigrated in the sixties and seventies, but did not expect such self-loathing here and now. In a country that has shown remarkable resilience these last few years in dealing with natural disasters, though their collective denial is alive and well when it comes to man-made disasters (like riots and mass murder), and is both celebrated and mocked by economists for ‘moving’ a huge population into the fray of the ‘global’ economy. It seems that people are starting to recognize that the growth they have experienced has come with a snag or two.

Anju mentioned that the size of the Indian middle class is larger than the entire population of the United States. But only 2% of the total population, I was told by this nice man on the train, has experienced any benefit from this so-called economic growth. The line between the rich and poor, said Kenneth, our first host in Chennai, has grown wider than ever before. Where once he felt comfortable as a middle class (caste unknown) man walking through the colony of houses and shops that sprung up around the guest house in the last few years- at night no less- he now feels like no one would come to his aid if he were in trouble. And vice versa, the new middle class IT workers following the path of the new IT Corridor (‘the road of our dreams’ we are told) would sooner walk over the body of a village child in need of help than offer any sympathy or help.

The landscape as much as I can tell from a comfortable seat on a moving train tells a somewhat different story. The style of hut changed from Tamil Nadu into Andhra, where the rectangular frame and gabled roof of palm fronds and banana leaves of the southern most state gave way to square huts with pointy hats made of grasses and palm fronds in the southern most Pradesh. But the placement of those huts seemed rather consistent, huddled next to the railway tracks or off in the distance next to water wells.

I saw an older man instructing a young boy how to drive an ox plow. A group of women helping each other draw water from a well, with a gaggle of little kids at their feet also carrying small pots of water on their heads- little girls and boys no less. By late afternoon on the first day I could see a simply clad Imam holding his right hand to his mouth, calling out for prayer, though from the confines of an airtight train car, I could hear nothing; and in the morning on the second day I could see Hindus gathering around tiny temples (you can see these everywhere). People out here seem quite capable taking care of the basics- faith, food, water and each other.