An Indian Train Ride

After about half a dozen train rides in India I am finally getting around to writing a post about the magic that happens during this experience. As with all things in India, the train rides are a shock to the senses. However, here it is a pleasant shock. Your senses get flooded with beautiful language, attire, scenes, smells and foods.

Today I am taking the Kawr Ysr EXPRESS 16515 to Mangalore to meet up with Tanner. I have been on this same train ride once before. But then it was May. It was dry. It was hot. It was extremely brown. Not to say that it wasn’t beautiful in its own right, it just had nothing on today’s ride. On that train in May I sat in coach, the train broke down and men wouldn’t stop staring at me. We rode through the mountains of Karnataka toward the sweeping coastline of Western India. The changes in landscape were breathtaking and I vowed to take the same train ride once the monsoon season hit. So here I am today.

After a few not so lovely train experiences, I have come to know that there is a ladies only carriage. This section of the train is reserved for women and children only. The luggage compartment completely separates it from the rest of the train; meaning no one can walk through and disturb you. For a “single female traveler”, as I am so often called by other Indian women, this is the safest and smartest choice. Here no one stares at me, no one touches me or my belongings - it is just a place where women seek out solace on a long journey. The women here are curious and friendly. Every time I have traveled in the women’s carriage I always end up with snacks and someone’s baby on my lap. It is heaven. Some days it is packed so tightly with women and children that people sleep on the luggage racks and women stand for hours on end. However, today is not one of those days. Today is perfect.

There are only seven women in the carriage and two children (by the time I finished writing only two women and I were occupying the carriage). We each have room to lay down, stretch out our feet or even pull out our laptop and blog.

Now, on the train, looking out into the world, I want to share this with everyone - so I will type. I will my words to transform into pictures for you to see, sounds for you to hear and sents to envelop your nostrils.

To say that what I see is breathtaking would be an understatement. When I open my eyes and gaze out the rod-iron window all I can see for miles and miles is a moist lush green that stimulates your eyes in a way that you want to create a new word for green. Green seems so ordinary for the shades, textures and shapes of the color I see. It is almost as if an emerald light was cast down over all of the plant life and each one consumed it and is now illuminated by the colorful brilliance. There are ferns shades of lime, rice paddies shades of vermillion and hundreds of thousands of leaves that have interpreted the color with their own unique personality and now glow with a unique brilliance. Each leaf, stem and vine are glistening with the iridescent raindrops from an earlier storm. The forest looks alive with the train passing in the reflections of the water drops.

Where before there were canyons and river beds dried up like a mason’s hands - now is gushing water widening the passage, forceful in its downward journey to the sea. The rhythmic clinking sound of the train over the tracks is interrupted frequently with the cascading sound of rushing water over boulders. The water slaps the rock hard at the top, hugs it, using it for guidance as it caresses the sides and then releases urgently at the bottom. This sound is echoed over and over as the rocks jut in and out of the water. The train snakes in and under the mountains, giving you a sneak peek of what magic lies hidden in the mountainside. If it wasn’t for the rails this part of India may never have been experienced.

The rushing water and glistening leaves are just the appetizer to this sensory meal. The sounds and smells are what really excites.

In a place where there are over 100 nationally recognized languages the train is an auditory delight. I can now recognize when someone is speaking about me and I can follow some Kanada conversations. However, when you are on an Indian train your ears are overloaded with new words, expressions, pitches and sounds so much that you just don’t know what is going on. It is never quite but you come to appreciate the train and its noises. The noise is chaos and you are so intrigued by everything it is never bothersome. Aside from the myriad of languages you hear crying babies, snoring passengers, laughing families, faces being slapped, creaking (all modes of Indian transportation thus far creak), and so much more. There are always touts (vendors) in and out of the aisles trying to sell you coffee, newspapers, tea, flowers, snacks and everything else under the sun. It is delightful in its abundance and variety. Whatever you what you can almost always find it on an Indian train and you can hear it being offered to you before you ever see it.

Your sight and hearing are always alert and full of sensations to process, but so is your nose. The smell of India can be describe in a variety of ways, but most always includes urine. The train is no different. There is a ensuite bathroom for every carriage and yes it reeks. If you haven’t ever been introduced to the squatty potty, thank someone. Now imagine --- you are on a train, it is roaring over the tracks, passing through a beautiful mountainous forest - you go into the bathroom to find... a hole in the floor. That is it. Just a nice round hole in the floor, you can see the ground rushing past through this hole. That is the only option to relieve yourself, over a hole big enough to lose your leg in. Scary and exhilarating. That my fine friends is Indian toilet (another story to follow on the girls’ understanding of how we use the bathroom).

So there is the overpowering smell of urine, but like all things you get used to it over time (gross but true). Then there is the amazing, intoxicating smell of jasmine. When Indian women travel they often wear their best clothes, fine gold jewelry and adorn their hair with flowers. Not just any flowers either. The most beautiful white and orange jasmine flowers. They are strung together along a fine piece of string and then tied to the braid, cascading down the back complimenting the colorful sari. Beautiful. That smell alone would be enough to write a whole blog on but there are even more smells my words need to describe.

FOOD! Indian food is delicious and you can smell it from miles away. It opens up your sinuses, makes your mouth water and awakens a new part of your brain. If there is one thing that is more plentiful than Indian people it is Indian food. It is everywhere! On the trains families prepare food before leaving the house and those single travelers who don’t have someone to prepare food for them are tempted at every stop with sweet chai, deep fried dough, colored rice, biryani, sweets and savory breads. Everyone opens their food as they please, eating with their right hand, only stopping when the last morsel is carefully scooped from the container and deposited into a mouth. Whether the food is homemade or from a stall or tout it comes in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and of course smells. The mixing of smells is perplexing. You can think you have pinpointed what smell is coming from what tin and then WHAM another smell hits your nose and confuses your brain. But you just breath deep and take it all in and await the next wave of smells. They are so intoxicating that sometimes you get a headache from trying to decipher what is what. But then you take a depth breath... and realize it doesn’t matter. You let yourself fall and submit yourself to everything that is going on around you. You make an effort to notice and appreciate all the sights, noises and smells but don’t strain because you have finally realized that half the fun of being on a train in India is letting go.